| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not
leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain
the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the
market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he
remember well his ignorance -- which his growth requires -- who has
so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him
gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we
judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on
fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we
do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.
And as the sound upon the cithern's neck
Taketh its form, and as upon the vent
Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,
Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting,
That murmuring of the eagle mounted up
Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.
There it became a voice, and issued thence
From out its beak, in such a form of words
As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.
"The part in me which sees and bears the sun
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: such an opus? Gude kens, but it tickles me. Two or three
historical personages will just appear: Judge Jeffreys,
Wellington, Colquhoun, Grant, and I think Townsend the runner. I
know the public won't like it; let 'em lump it then; I mean to make
it good; it will be more like a saga. - Adieu, yours ever
affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
VAILIMA [SUMMER 1891].
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - I find among my grandfather's papers his own
reminiscences of his voyage round the north with Sir Walter, eighty
|
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 Betty Zane by Zane Grey: obstructed a view of the camp scene.
From this vantage point Wetzel saw a clear space surrounded by pines and
hemlocks. In the center of this glade a fire burned briskly. Two Indians lay
wrapped in their blankets, sound asleep. Wetzel pressed the dog close to the
ground, laid aside his rifle, drew his tomahawk, and lying flat on his breast
commenced to work his way, inch by inch, toward the sleeping savages. The tall
ferns trembled as the hunter wormed his way among them, but there was no
sound, not a snapping of a twig nor a rustling of a leaf. The nightwind sighed
softly through the pines; it blew the bright sparks from the burning logs, and
fanned the embers into a red glow; it swept caressingly over the sleeping
savages, but it could not warn them that another wind, the Wind-of-Death, as
Betty Zane |
