| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: Now, presently. Bid them come forth and hear me,
Or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum
Till it cry sleep to death.
Glou. I would have all well betwixt you. Exit.
Lear. O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!
Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when
she
put 'em i' th' paste alive. She knapp'd 'em o' th' coxcombs
with
a stick and cried 'Down, wantons, down!' 'Twas her brother
that,
King Lear |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: of drowning men. A gang of French Canadians
fell almost on top of him. He thought he had
cleared them, when they began coming up all
around him, clutching at him and at each
other. Some of them could swim, but they
were either hurt or crazed with fright.
Alexander tried to beat them off, but there
were too many of them. One caught him about
the neck, another gripped him about the middle,
and they went down together. When he sank,
his wife seemed to be there in the water
Alexander's Bridge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to
one conception of reason;--this is the recollection of those things which
our soul once saw while following God--when regardless of that which we now
call being she raised her head up towards the true being. And therefore
the mind of the philosopher alone has wings; and this is just, for he is
always, according to the measure of his abilities, clinging in recollection
to those things in which God abides, and in beholding which He is what He
is. And he who employs aright these memories is ever being initiated into
perfect mysteries and alone becomes truly perfect. But, as he forgets
earthly interests and is rapt in the divine, the vulgar deem him mad, and
rebuke him; they do not see that he is inspired.
|
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 The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: motherhood.
So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, besought their
mother to let them run out and play in the new snow; for, though
it had looked so dreary and dismal, drifting downward out of the
gray sky, it had a very cheerful aspect, now that the sun was
shining on it. The children dwelt in a city, and had no wider
play-place than a little garden before the house, divided by a
white fence from the street, and with a pear-tree and two or
three plum-trees overshadowing it, and some rose-bushes just in
front of the parlor-windows. The trees and shrubs, however, were
now leafless, and their twigs were enveloped in the light snow,
The Snow Image |
