| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: part, or a first volume, or even a first chapter, he had always
answered that he wanted to get the whole work clearly in his head
before he put it down on paper.
"To rush precipitously forward without knowing precisely where one
wants to go," he would tell them, "will not of necessity produce a
happy outcome because it might lead to a complicative erroneity or
put one on a train to a destination he would not ultimately wish to
visit. After all, the most beautiful part of a given day is known
only after dark, and the best path up the mountain--which I take to
be the path of true wisdom--is seen only from the top."
Year after year, therefore, arrived with hope and left disappointed;
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: unique in the experience of man. People enough, first and last,
had been in terror of apparitions, but who had ever before so
turned the tables and become himself, in the apparitional world, an
incalculable terror? He might have found this sublime had he quite
dared to think of it; but he didn't too much insist, truly, on that
side of his privilege. With habit and repetition he gained to an
extraordinary degree the power to penetrate the dusk of distances
and the darkness of corners, to resolve back into their innocence
the treacheries of uncertain light, the evil-looking forms taken in
the gloom by mere shadows, by accidents of the air, by shifting
effects of perspective; putting down his dim luminary he could
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace
accorded us this day; for the hope with which we expect the morrow;
for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies, that make
our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth,
and our friendly helpers in this foreign isle. Let peace abound in
our small company. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge.
Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Offenders,
give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders. Forgetful
ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others.
Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our
friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all
|
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: child of her first child, and fell in labour, having the plague upon her.
He could neither get midwife to assist her or nurse to tend her, and
two servants which he kept fled both from her. He ran from house to
house like one distracted, but could get no help; the utmost he could
get was, that a watchman, who attended at an infected house shut up,
promised to send a nurse in the morning. The poor man, with his
heart broke, went back, assisted his wife what he could, acted the part
of the midwife, brought the child dead into the world, and his wife in
about an hour died in his arms, where he held her dead body fast till
the morning, when the watchman came and brought the nurse as he
had promised; and coming up the stairs (for he had left the door open,
A Journal of the Plague Year |
