| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: Now what Socrates held was, that if a man may with justice incarcerate
another for no better cause than a form of folly or ignorance, this
same person could not justly complain if he in his turn were kept in
bonds by his superiors in knowledge; and to come to the bottom of such
questions, to discover the difference between madness and ignorance
was a problem which he was perpetually working at. His opinion came to
this: If a madman may, as a matter of expediency to himself and his
friends, be kept in prison, surely, as a matter of justice, the man
who knows not what he ought to know should be content to sit at the
feet of those who know, and be taught.
But it was the rest of their kith and kin, not fathers only (according
The Memorabilia |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: vague; and he was struck with the tact, the taste of her vagueness,
which simply took for granted in him a sense of beautiful things.
He was conscious of how much it was affected, this sense, by
something subdued and discreet in the way she had arranged herself
for her special object and her morning walk--he believed her to
have come on foot; the way her slightly thicker veil was drawn--a
mere touch, but everything; the composed gravity of her dress, in
which, here and there, a dull wine-colour seemed to gleam faintly
through black; the charming discretion of her small compact head;
the quiet note, as she sat, of her folded, grey-gloved hands. It
was, to Strether's mind, as if she sat on her own ground, the light
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: becoming habitual with him, particularly when he was with Miriam.
She longed to smooth it away, and she was afraid of it. It seemed
the stamp of a man who was not her man in Paul Morel.
There were some crimson berries among the leaves in the bowl.
He reached over and pulled out a bunch.
"If you put red berries in your hair," he said, "why would
you look like some witch or priestess, and never like a reveller?"
She laughed with a naked, painful sound.
"I don't know," she said.
His vigorous warm hands were playing excitedly with the berries.
"Why can't you laugh?" he said. "You never laugh laughter.
Sons and Lovers |
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 Walden by Henry David Thoreau: astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some
of the enterprises which I have cherished.
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been
anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too;
to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future,
which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will
pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than
in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from
its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and
never paint "No Admittance" on my gate.
I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle dove, and am
Walden |
