| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: and failed, that I say she was too good for him. She would have
been as much too good for me. But she WAS too good for him; he
wasn't free and frank enough for her. I don't reproach his memory
with it, poor fellow; I only want to put her before you as she
really was. For myself, I'll keep her old picture in my mind; and
thinking of that, and what has altered her, I'll stand her friend,
and try to win her back to peace. And damme, sir,' cried Gabriel,
'with your pardon for the word, I'd do the same if she had married
fifty highwaymen in a twelvemonth; and think it in the Protestant
Manual too, though Martha said it wasn't, tooth and nail, till
doomsday!'
Barnaby Rudge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: to go, I was thrown out. And I mean this literally.
The opportunity came to the Chatterer one day when I
was alone in the nest. My mother and the Chatterer had
gone away together toward the blueberry swamp. He must
have planned the whole thing, for I heard him returning
alone through the forest, roaring with self-induced
rage as he came. Like all the men of our horde, when
they were angry or were trying to make themselves
angry, he stopped now and again to hammer on his chest
with his fist.
I realized the helplessness of my situation, and
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Thou only to this office wert foredoom'd."
I had not ended, when, like rapid mill,
Upon its centre whirl'd the light; and then
The love, that did inhabit there, replied:
"Splendour eternal, piercing through these folds,
Its virtue to my vision knits, and thus
Supported, lifts me so above myself,
That on the sov'ran essence, which it wells from,
I have the power to gaze: and hence the joy,
Wherewith I sparkle, equaling with my blaze
The keenness of my sight. But not the soul,
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
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 Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: the circumstances of power and grandeur, meant to enter the lists
fully armed; the burning ambition of conquest possessed him
already; perhaps he was conscious of his powers, but as yet he
knew neither the end to which his ambition was to be directed,
nor the means of attaining it. In default of the pure and sacred
love that fills a life, ambition may become something very noble,
subduing to itself every thought of personal interest, and
setting as the end--the greatness, not of one man, but of a whole
nation.
But the student had not yet reached the time of life when a man
surveys the whole course of existence and judges it soberly.
Father Goriot |
