| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,
How great thy use, how great thy blessing, every thing that lives.
Lives not alone nor or itself: fear not and I will call,
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.
Come forth worm and the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.
The helpless worm arose and sat upon the Lillys leaf,
And the bright Cloud saild on, to find his partner in the vale.
III.
Then Thel astonish'd view'd the Worm upon its dewy bed.
Art thou a Worm? image of weakness. art thou but a Worm?
I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lillys leaf;
Poems of William Blake |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: when not enough exercised, are often called skittish, when it is only play;
and some grooms will punish them, but our John did not;
he knew it was only high spirits. Still, he had his own ways
of making me understand by the tone of his voice or the touch of the rein.
If he was very serious and quite determined, I always knew it by his voice,
and that had more power with me than anything else,
for I was very fond of him.
I ought to say that sometimes we had our liberty for a few hours;
this used to be on fine Sundays in the summer-time.
The carriage never went out on Sundays, because the church was not far off.
It was a great treat to us to be turned out into the home paddock
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: myself an obstinate cold, at least.'
'I hope not, sir. Well, you must allow me to leap over some three
years; during that space Mrs. Earnshaw - '
'No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with
the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat
licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the
operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you
seriously out of temper?'
'A terribly lazy mood, I should say.'
'On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present;
and, therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these
Wuthering Heights |
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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: Veronese is an anchorite compared to Shakespear. The language of the
sonnets addressed to Pembroke, extravagant as it now seems, is the
language of compliment and fashion, transfigured no doubt by
Shakespear's verbal magic, and hyperbolical, as Shakespear always
seems to people who cannot conceive so vividly as he, but still
unmistakable for anything else than the expression of a friendship
delicate enough to be wounded, and a manly loyalty deep enough to be
outraged. But the language of the sonnets to the Dark Lady is the
language of passion: their cruelty shews it. There is no evidence
that Shakespear was capable of being unkind in cold blood. But in his
revulsions from love, he was bitter, wounding, even ferocious; sparing
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