| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: at the last, with his hand on the door, he said to me: "Of course
you'll be all right, you know." Seeing I was a trifle vague he
added: "I mean you won't be silly."
"Silly - about Vereker! Why what do I ever find him but awfully
clever?"
"Well, what's that but silly? What on earth does 'awfully clever'
mean? For God's sake try to get AT him. Don't let him suffer by
our arrangement. Speak of him, you know, if you can, as I should
have spoken of him."
I wondered an instant. "You mean as far and away the biggest of
the lot - that sort of thing?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: which was laid on the ground on purpose for me, and extended a
hundred feet: I paced the diameter and circumference several
times barefoot, and, computing by the scale, measured it pretty
exactly.
The king's palace is no regular edifice, but a heap of buildings,
about seven miles round: the chief rooms are generally two
hundred and forty feet high, and broad and long in proportion. A
coach was allowed to Glumdalclitch and me, wherein her governess
frequently took her out to see the town, or go among the shops;
and I was always of the party, carried in my box; although the
girl, at my own desire, would often take me out, and hold me in
Gulliver's Travels |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: presented him with more intensity, thrust him out of his frame with
more art, as if there had been "treatment," of the consummate sort,
in his every shade and salience. The revulsion, for our friend,
had become, before he knew it, immense - this drop, in the act of
apprehension, to the sense of his adversary's inscrutable
manoeuvre. That meaning at least, while he gaped, it offered him;
for he could but gape at his other self in this other anguish, gape
as a proof that HE, standing there for the achieved, the enjoyed,
the triumphant life, couldn't be faced in his triumph. Wasn't the
proof in the splendid covering hands, strong and completely spread?
- so spread and so intentional that, in spite of a special verity
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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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew:
Her answer was "Leave me to deal with that."
I spoke of war to come and many deaths,
And she replied, her duty was to speak,
And duty duty, clear of consequences.
I grew discouraged, Sir; but since I knew
No rock so hard but that a little wave
May beat admission in a thousand years,
I recommenced; "Decide not ere you pause.
I find you here but in the second place,
Some say the third--the authentic foundress you.
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