| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Those deep feelings to hide, which within my breast are contending.
And now leave me, my mother! For as in my bosom I cherish
Wishes that are but vain, my life will be to no purpose.
For I know that the Unit who makes a self-sacrifice, only
Injures himself, unless all endeavour the Whole to accomplish."
"Now continue," replied forthwith his sensible mother:--
"Tell me all that has happen'd, the least as w'ell as the greatest
Men are always hasty, and only remember the last thing,
And the hasty are easily forced from the road by obstructions.
But a woman is skillful, and full of resources, and scorns not
Bye-roads to traverse when needed, well-skill'd to accomplish her purpose.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: She told me, to unfold myself to her was telling it to nobody;
that she was silent as death; that it must be a very strange case
indeed that she could not help me out of; but to conceal it was
to deprive myself of all possible help, or means of help, and to
deprive her of the opportunity of serving me. In short, she had
such a bewitching eloquence, and so great a power of persuasion
that there was no concealing anything from her.
So I resolved to unbosom myself to her. I told her the history
of my Lancashire marriage, and how both of us had been
disappointed; how we came together, and how we parted; how
he absolutely discharged me, as far as lay in him, free liberty to
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: beauty of death; and all those lines and blots of vapour wrote one great
word across the surface of the country, and that word was 'fever.'
"It was a dreadful year of illness that. I came, I remember, to one
little kraal of Knobnoses, and went up to it to see if I could get some
'maas', or curdled butter-milk, and a few mealies. As I drew near I was
struck with the silence of the place. No children began to chatter, and
no dogs barked. Nor could I see any native sheep or cattle. The place,
though it had evidently been inhabited of late, was as still as the bush
round it, and some guinea-fowl got up out of the prickly pear bushes
right at the kraal gate. I remember that I hesitated a little before
going in, there was such an air of desolation about the spot. Nature
Long Odds |
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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: way, but I have not oft used it, because it is void of the pleasures that
such days as these, that we two now enjoy, afford an angler
And you are to know, that in Hampshire, which I think exceeds all
England for swift, shallow, clear, pleasant brooks, and store of Trouts,
they used to catch Trouts in the night, by the light of a torch or straw,
which, when they have discovered, they strike with a Trout-spear, or
other ways. This kind of way they catch very many: but I would not
believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor do I like it now I have seen
it.
Venator. But, master, do not Trouts see us in the night?
Piscator Yes, and hear, and smell too, both then and in the day-time: for
|
