| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: seated her on a goodly carven chair, and spread a linen
cloth thereunder, and beneath was a footstool for the feet.
For himself he placed an inlaid seat hard by, apart from
the company of the wooers, lest the stranger should be
disquieted by the noise and should have a loathing for the
meal, being come among overweening men, and also that he
might ask him about his father that was gone from his home.
Then a handmaid bare water for the washing of hands in a
goodly golden ewer, and poured it forth over a silver basin
to wash withal, and drew to their side a polished table.
And a grave dame bare wheaten bread and set it by them, and
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: put in the night spending the money, which was easy. During that
one night the nineteen wives spent an average of seven thousand
dollars each out of the forty thousand in the sack--a hundred and
thirty-three thousand altogether.
Next day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday. He noticed that
the faces of the nineteen chief citizens and their wives bore that
expression of peaceful and holy happiness again. He could not
understand it, neither was he able to invent any remarks about it
that could damage it or disturb it. And so it was his turn to be
dissatisfied with life. His private guesses at the reasons for the
happiness failed in all instances, upon examination. When he met
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: Puffs of wind came. Paul looked over the high woods of Aldersley,
where the country gleamed, and home had never pulled at him
so powerfully.
"Good-morning, mother," he said, smiling, but feeling very unhappy.
"Good-morning," she replied cheerfully and tenderly.
She stood in her white apron on the open road, watching him
as he crossed the field. He had a small, compact body that looked
full of life. She felt, as she saw him trudging over the field,
that where he determined to go he would get. She thought of William.
He would have leaped the fence instead of going round the stile.
He was away in London, doing well. Paul would be working in Nottingham.
Sons and Lovers |
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 Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: of gold full of gravel or sand, some vessels of gold full of coals
burning, some vessels of gold full of water and of wine and of oil,
and some horologes of gold, made full nobly and richly wrought, and
many other manner of instruments after their sciences.
And at certain hours, when them thinketh time, they say to certain
officers that stand before them, ordained for the time to fulfil
their commandments; Make peace!
And then say the officers; Now peace! listen!
And after that, saith another of the philosophers; Every man do
reverence and incline to the emperor, that is God's Son and
sovereign lord of all the world! For now is time! And then every
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