| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,
If men should pass above
With false and feeble pity,
My dust will find a voice
To answer them aloud:
"Be still, I am content,
Take back your poor compassion,
Joy was a flame in me
Too steady to destroy;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: beech. He knew that tree well; it was the boundary mark of his
youth--the sign, to him, of the time when some of his earliest,
strongest feelings had left him. He felt sure they would never
return. And yet, at this moment, there was a stirring of
affection at the remembrance of that Arthur Donnithorne whom he
had believed in before he had come up to this beech eight months
ago. It was affection for the dead: THAT Arthur existed no
longer.
He was disturbed by the sound of approaching footsteps, but the
beech stood at a turning in the road, and he could not see who was
coming until the tall slim figure in deep mourning suddenly stood
Adam Bede |
