| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: of the mouth, which is a sign of grief, gives an air of peevishness.
If a child (see Plate IV., fig. 2)[8] frowns much whilst crying,
but does not strongly contract in the usual manner the orbicular muscles,
a well-marked expression of anger or even of rage, together with misery,
is displayed.
[7] `Miles Gloriosus,' act ii. sc. 2.
If the whole frowning brow be drawn much downward by the
contraction of the pyramidal muscles of the nose, which produces
transverse wrinkles or folds across the base of the nose,
the expression becomes one of moroseness. Duchenne believes
that the contraction of this muscle, without any frowning,
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: 'O my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.'
Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, 'What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?'
'I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: Miss Mackenzie wandering around on the desert, lost. Ask him
whether I'm to bring her up. She's played out and can't travel
far, tell him."
The showman rode on his errand and the other returned to Helen.
"You better light, ma'am. We'll have to wait here a few minutes,"
he explained.
He helped her dismount. She did not understand why it was
necessary to wait, but that was his business and not hers. Her
roving eyes fell upon the cattle again.
"They ARE my uncle's, aren't they?"
"They were," he corrected. "Cattle change hands a good deal in
|
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 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: away her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took
her up thus -
"Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly
never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for
you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with
yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your
feebleness on some other person's strength: if no one can be found
willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy,
useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected,
miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of
continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon:
Jane Eyre |
