| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: enim magnam partem equitatus ab iis aliquot diebus ante praedandi
frumentandi causa ad Ambivaritos trans Mosam missam: hos expectari
equites atque eius rei causa moram interponi arbitrabatur.
[Mosa profluit ex monte Vosego, qui est in finibus Lingonum, et parte
quadam ex Rheno recepta, quae appellatur Vacalus insulam efficit
Batavorum, in Oceanum influit neque longius ab Oceano milibus passuum LXXX
in Rhenum influit. Rhenus autem oritur ex Lepontiis, qui Alpes incolunt,
et longo spatio per fines Nantuatium, Helvetiorum, Sequanorum,
Mediomatricorum, Tribocorum, Treverorum citatus fertur et, ubi Oceano
adpropinquavit, in plures diffluit partes multis ingentibus insulis
effectis, quarum pars magna a feris barbaris nationibus incolitur, ex
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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: mean as Adam's fond o' Dinah."
"Aye! hast ever had any notion of it before?"
"To be sure I have," said Mrs. Poyser, who always declined, if
possible, to be taken by surprise. "I'm not one o' those as can
see the cat i' the dairy an' wonder what she's come after."
"Thee never saidst a word to me about it."
"Well, I aren't like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when
the wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there's no
good i' speaking."
"But Dinah 'll ha' none o' him. Dost think she will?"
"Nay," said Mrs. Poyser, not sufficiently on her guard against a
Adam Bede |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: had to arouse her, night after night. But Feliu, answering her
anxiety with one of his favorite proverbs, suggested a heroic
remedy:--
--"The world is like the sea: those who do not know how to swim
in it are drowned;--and the sea is like the world," he added....
"Chita must learn to swim!"
And he found the time to teach her. Each morning, at sunrise, he
took her into the water. She was less terrified the first time
than Carmen thought she would be;--she seemed to feel confidence
in Feliu; although she screamed piteously before her first
ducking at his hands. His teaching was not gentle. He would
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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 A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: button, I believe, went out with the last of the French Bourbons.
"I preserved it from the time of my navy service," he explained,
nodding rapidly his frail, vulture-like head. It was not very
likely that he had picked up that relic in the street. He looked
certainly old enough to have fought at Trafalgar--or, at any
rate, to have played his little part there as a powder monkey.
Shortly after we had been introduced he had informed me in a
Franco-Provencal jargon, mumbling tremulously with his toothless
jaws, that when he was a "shaver no higher than that" he had seen
the Emperor Napoleon returning from Elba. It was at night, he
narrated vaguely, without animation, at a spot between Frejus and
A Personal Record |
