| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: ment, that would bring him back to Colebrook
again.
"Ha, ha, ha! Why, of course, Colebrook.
Where else? That's the only place in the United
Kingdom for your long-lost sons. So he sold up
his old home in Colchester, and down he comes here.
Well, it's a craze, like any other. Wouldn't catch
me going crazy over any of my youngsters clear-
ing out. I've got eight of them at home." The
barber was showing off his strength of mind in the
midst of a laughter that shook the tap-room.
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: To make a speck of darkness on the sun?
Let us go down where walls will shut us round.
Your castle has a hundred quiet halls,
A hundred chambers, where the shadows lie
On things put by, forgotten long ago.
Forgotten lutes with strings that Time has slackened,
We two shall draw them close and bid them sing --
Forgotten games, forgotten books still open
Where you had laid them by at vesper-time,
And your embroidery, whereon half-worked
Weeps Amor wounded by a rose's thorn.
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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 Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: she re-read them, some fresh refinement of sentiment, or accuteness
of thought impressed her, which she was astonished at herself for
not having before observed.
What a creative power has an affectionate heart! There are
beings who cannot live without loving, as poets love; and who feel
the electric spark of genius, wherever it awakens sentiment or
grace. Maria had often thought, when disciplining her wayward
heart, "that to charm, was to be virtuous." "They who make me wish
to appear the most amiable and good in their eyes, must possess in
a degree," she would exclaim, "the graces and virtues they call
into action."
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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 Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: of a ship, and they did not like the darkness or the damp smell.
In this country, as in all others they had visited underneath the
earth's surface, there was no night, a constant and strong light
coming from some unknown source. Looking out, they could see into
some of the houses near them, where there were open windows in
abundance, and were able to mark the forms of the wooden Gargoyles
moving about in their dwellings.
"This seems to be their time of rest," observed the Wizard.
"All people need rest, even if they are made of wood, and as
there is no night here they select a certain time of the day
in which to sleep or doze."
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
