| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: encountered and unwillingly slew his father Laius. Arriving at Thebes
he answered the riddle of the Sphinx and the grateful Thebans made
their deliverer king. So he reigned in the room of Laius, and
espoused the widowed queen. Children were born to them and Thebes
prospered under his rule, but again a grievous plague fell upon the
city. Again the oracle was consulted and it bade them purge
themselves of blood-guiltiness. Oedipus denounces the crime of which
he is unaware, and undertakes to track out the criminal. Step by
step it is brought home to him that he is the man. The closing scene
reveals Jocasta slain by her own hand and Oedipus blinded by his own
act and praying for death or exile.
Oedipus Trilogy |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: Here's the old man up there buried in his chair--he
may just as well be in his grave for all the use he'll ever
be in the world--and the Serang's in charge. Because
that's what he is. In charge. In the place that's mine
by rights. I must bring that savage brute to his bear-
ings. I'll do it at once, too . . ."
When the mate made an abrupt start, a little brown
half-naked boy, with large black eyes, and the string
of a written charm round his neck, became panic-struck
at once. He dropped the banana he had been munch-
ing, and ran to the knee of a grave dark Arab in flow-
End of the Tether |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: I could have given you a dozen signs of a hard winter. We shall still have a
month or six weeks of it. In a week will be ground-hog day and you had better
wait and decide after that."
"I tell you, Eb, I get tired chopping wood and hanging round the house."
"Aha! another moody spell," said Col. Zane, glancing kindly at his brother.
"Jack, if you were married you would outgrow those 'blue-devils.' I used to
have them. It runs in the family to be moody. I have known our father to take
his gun and go into the woods and stay there until he had fought out the
spell. I have done that myself, but once I married Bessie I have had no return
of the old feeling. Get married, Jack, and then you will settle down and work.
You will not have time to roam around alone in the woods."
Betty Zane |
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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: peopled for me with persons of the same fashion. Dwarfs and
sinister people in cloaks are about them; and I seem to divine
crypts, and, as I said, trap-doors. O God be praised that we live
in this good daylight and this good peace.
BARMOUTH, AUGUST 9TH. - To-day we saw the cathedral at Chester;
and, far more delightful, saw and heard a certain inimitable verger
who took us round. He was full of a certain recondite, far-away
humour that did not quite make you laugh at the time, but was
somehow laughable to recollect. Moreover, he had so far a just
imagination, and could put one in the right humour for seeing an
old place, very much as, according to my favourite text, Scott's
|
