| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of
the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed,
twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one
fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep,
black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are
seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded
by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve
four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year
old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune,
through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck
A Modest Proposal |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: carried a high, raised poop. About the top of it ran considerable
bulwarks, which made the ship unweatherly; and these, as they
approached the front on each side, ran down in a fine, old-
fashioned, carven scroll to join the bulwarks of the waist. From
this disposition, which seems designed rather for ornament than
use, it followed there was a discontinuance of protection: and
that, besides, at the very margin of the elevated part where (in
certain movements of the ship) it might be the most needful. It
was here we were sitting: our feet hanging down, the Master
betwixt me and the side, and I holding on with both hands to the
grating of the cabin skylight; for it struck me it was a dangerous
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: by the King and Queen of Spain, he fancied that he (Rastignac) had
secured a very valuable dupe in NUCINGEN! For a long while he had
laughed at a man whose capacities he was unable to estimate; he ended
in a sober, serious, and devout admiration of Nucingen, owning that
Nucingen really had the power which he thought he himself alone
possessed.
"From Rastignac's introduction to society in Paris, he had been led to
contemn it utterly. From the year 1820 he thought, like the Baron,
that honesty was a question of appearances; he looked upon the world
as a mixture of corruption and rascality of every sort. If he admitted
exceptions, he condemned the mass; he put no belief in any virtue--men
|
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 Summer by Edith Wharton: into her eyes with his shy grey glance. "You can trust
me, you know--you really can."
All the old frozen woes seemed to melt in her, and she
murmured awkwardly, looking away from him: "Oh, I'll
wait."
V
There had never been such a June in Eagle County.
Usually it was a month of moods, with abrupt
alternations of belated frost and mid-summer heat; this
year, day followed day in a sequence of temperate
beauty. Every morning a breeze blew steadily from the
|
