| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: by people living lives very like the lives of us who are called
"sane," except that they lift to a higher excitement and fall to a
lower depression, and that these extremer phases of mania or
melancholia slip the leash of mental consistency altogether and take
abnormal forms. They tap deep founts of impulse, such as we of the
safer ways of mediocrity do but glimpse under the influence of
drugs, or in dreams and rare moments of controllable extravagance.
Then the insane become "glorious," or they become murderous, or they
become suicidal. All these letter-writers in confinement have
convinced their fellow-creatures by some extravagance that they are
a danger to themselves or others.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: lastingly safe from all the surprises of imagina-
tion. And yet which of us is safe? At any rate,
such as you see her, she had enough imagination
to fall in love. She's the daughter of one Isaac
Foster, who from a small farmer has sunk into a
shepherd; the beginning of his misfortunes dating
from his runaway marriage with the cook of his
widowed father--a well-to-do, apoplectic grazier,
who passionately struck his name off his will, and
had been heard to utter threats against his life.
But this old affair, scandalous enough to serve as
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: Internally Lady Bothwell thought the security was but an
indifferent one; but she suppressed the suspicion, as if she had
believed that the adept, whose dark features wore a half-formed
smile, could in reality read even her most secret reflections. A
solemn pause then ensued, until Lady Forester gathered courage
enough to reply to the physician, as he termed himself, that she
would abide with firmness and silence the sight which he had
promised to exhibit to them. Upon this, he made them a low
obeisance, and saying he went to prepare matters to meet their
wish, left the apartment. The two sisters, hand in hand, as if
seeking by that close union to divert any danger which might
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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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: excessive because, long dormant, they awoke furious. One of them,
after re-reading "Venice Preserved," and admiring the sublime union of
Pierre and Jaffier, began to reflect on the virtues shown by men who
are outlawed by society, on the honesty of galley-slaves, the
faithfulness of thieves among each other, the privileges of exorbitant
power which such men know how to win by concentrating all ideas into a
single will. He saw that Man is greater than men. He concluded that
society ought to belong wholly to those distinguished beings who, to
natural intelligence, acquired wisdom, and fortune, add a fanaticism
hot enough to fuse into one casting these different forces. That done,
their occult power, vast in action and in intensity, against which the
Ferragus |
