| 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: My firm belief. A truce to argument.
For, had I sight, I know not with what eyes
I could have met my father in the shades,
Or my poor mother, since against the twain
I sinned, a sin no gallows could atone.
Aye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys
A parent's eyes. What, born as mine were born?
No, such a sight could never bring me joy;
Nor this fair city with its battlements,
Its temples and the statues of its gods,
Sights from which I, now wretchedst of all,
Oedipus Trilogy |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no
better in print. The next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish
for my dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck
which ravaged my bean-field -- effect his transmigration, as a
Tartar would say -- and devour him, partly for experiment's sake;
but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a
musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good
practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready
dressed by the village butcher.
Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates,
though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to
Walden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread him-
self out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you
may say; and they slid him edgeways between two
barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they
say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway
it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a
fool.
Well, the days went along, and the river went down
between its banks again; and about the first thing we
done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned
rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
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 Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: his countenance.
As I stooped to drop to the floor beside him he motioned
me to wait, and coming close below me whispered: "Catch
my hand; I can almost leap to the top of that wall myself.
I have tried it many times, and each day I come a little
closer. Some day I should have been able to make it."
I lay upon my belly across the wall and reached my hand
far down toward him. With a little run from the centre of
the cell he sprang up until I grasped his outstretched hand,
and thus I pulled him to the wall's top beside me.
"You are the first jumper I ever saw among the red men
The Gods of Mars |
