| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: V
The peasants had long ago grown used to the sight of the bridge,
and it was difficult to imagine the river at that place without a
bridge. The heap of rubble left from the building of it had long
been overgrown with grass, the navvies were forgotten, and
instead of the strains of the "Dubinushka" that they used to
sing, the peasants heard almost every hour the sounds of a
passing train.
The New Villa has long ago been sold; now it belongs to a
government clerk who comes here from the town for the holidays
with his family, drinks tea on the terrace, and then goes back to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: HELENA.
Inspired merit so by breath is barred:
It is not so with Him that all things knows,
As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows:
But most it is presumption in us when
The help of heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent:
Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim;
But know I think, and think I know most sure,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Soon dried, and on the reeking moisture fed.
Straight toward Heaven my wondering eyes I turned,
And gazed a while the ample sky; till, raised
By quick instinctive motion, up I sprung,
As thitherward endeavouring, and upright
Stood on my feet: about me round I saw
Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,
And liquid lapse of murmuring streams; by these,
Creatures that lived and moved, and walked, or flew;
Birds on the branches warbling; all things smiled;
With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflowed.
Paradise Lost |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: virtue. Now I want you to tell me truly whether virtue is one whole, of
which justice and temperance and holiness are parts; or whether all these
are only the names of one and the same thing: that is the doubt which
still lingers in my mind.
There is no difficulty, Socrates, in answering that the qualities of which
you are speaking are the parts of virtue which is one.
And are they parts, I said, in the same sense in which mouth, nose, and
eyes, and ears, are the parts of a face; or are they like the parts of
gold, which differ from the whole and from one another only in being larger
or smaller?
I should say that they differed, Socrates, in the first way; they are
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