| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Strongly he threw in the clutch; but Rahero resisted the strain,
And jerked, and the spine of life snapped with a crack in twain,
And the man came slack in his hands and tumbled a lump at his feet.
One moment: and there, on the reef, where the breakers whitened and beat,
Rahero was standing alone, glowing and scorched and bare,
A victor unknown of any, raising the torch in the air.
But once he drank of his breath, and instantly set him to fish
Like a man intent upon supper at home and a savoury dish.
For what should the woman have seen? A man with a torch - and then
A moment's blur of the eyes - and a man with a torch again.
And the torch had scarcely been shaken. "Ah, surely," Rahero said,
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: contemn it utterly. From the year 1820 he thought, like the Baron,
that honesty was a question of appearances; he looked upon the world
as a mixture of corruption and rascality of every sort. If he admitted
exceptions, he condemned the mass; he put no belief in any virtue--men
did right or wrong, as circumstances decided. His worldly wisdom was
the work of a moment; he learned his lesson at the summit of Pere
Lachaise one day when he buried a poor, good man there; it was his
Delphine's father, who died deserted by his daughters and their
husbands, a dupe of our society and of the truest affection. Rastignac
then and there resolved to exploit this world, to wear full dress of
virtue, honesty, and fine manners. He was empanoplied in selfishness.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: another without exciting suspicion--and she was like a frightened
child, unable to think of anything, only able to cry at the
mention of parting, and then put her face up to have the tears
kissed away. He could do nothing but comfort her, and lull her
into dreaming on. A letter would be a dreadfully abrupt way of
awakening her! Yet there was truth in what Adam said--that it
would save her from a lengthened delusion, which might be worse
than a sharp immediate pain. And it was the only way of
satisfying Adam, who must be satisfied, for more reasons than one.
If he could have seen her again! But that was impossible; there
was such a thorny hedge of hindrances between them, and an
Adam Bede |
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 Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: which naturally lead to certain lines of action and produce certain
effects on the body, for the whole system is thus preoccupied;
and these emotions are already thus expressed with the greatest plainness.
[11] Lieber, `On the Vocal Sounds,' &c., ibid. p. 7.
[12] Huschke, `Mimices et Physiognomices,' 1821, p. 18. Gratiolet (De
la Phys. p. 255) gives a figure of a man in this attitude, which,
however, seems to me expressive of fear combined with astonishment.
Le Brun also refers (Lavater, vol. ix. p. 299) to the hands of an
astonished man being opened.
There is another little gesture, expressive of astonishment
of which I can offer no explanation; namely, the hand being placed
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
