| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: What time I watched the swallow winging south
From mine own land, part made long since, and part
Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far
As I could ape their treble, did I sing.
'O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.
'O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North.
'O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Hath made his pendant Bed, and procreant Cradle,
Where they must breed, and haunt: I haue obseru'd
The ayre is delicate.
Enter Lady.
King. See, see our honor'd Hostesse:
The Loue that followes vs, sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thanke as Loue. Herein I teach you,
How you shall bid God-eyld vs for your paines,
And thanke vs for your trouble
Lady. All our seruice,
In euery point twice done, and then done double,
Macbeth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: way, too. I was very anxious to have him landed before I began
to handle the cargo. Almayer remained looking up at me for a
long while, with incredulous and melancholy eyes, as though it
were not a safe thing to believe in my statement. This pathetic
mistrust in the favourable issue of any sort of affair touched me
deeply, and I added:
"He doesn't seem a bit the worse for the passage. He's a nice
pony, too."
Almayer was not to be cheered up; for all answer he cleared his
throat and looked down again at his feet. I tried to close with
him on another tack.
A Personal Record |
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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: spoken doctor, who by the aid of Christophe's future jailer, carried
the poor boy to a bed, brought him some broth, helped him to swallow
it, sat down beside him, felt his pulse, and tried to comfort him.
"You won't die of this," he said. "You ought to feel great inward
comfort, knowing that you have done your duty.--The queen-mother bids
me take care of you," he added in a whisper.
"The queen is very good," said Christophe, whose terrible sufferings
had developed an extraordinary lucidity in his mind, and who, after
enduring such unspeakable sufferings, was determined not to compromise
the results of his devotion. "But she might have spared me much agony
be telling my persecutors herself the secrets that I know nothing
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