| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: But Thel delights in these no more because I fade away
And all shall say, without a use this shining women liv'd,
Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms.
The Cloud reclind upon his airy throne and answerd thus.
Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,
How great thy use, how great thy blessing, every thing that lives.
Lives not alone nor or itself: fear not and I will call,
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.
Come forth worm and the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.
The helpless worm arose and sat upon the Lillys leaf,
And the bright Cloud saild on, to find his partner in the vale.
Poems of William Blake |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: hours under the bridge of the Avonne to see what he was about. A woman
may have helped him."
"It is dreadful!" said the countess.
"They call it amusing themselves," added the priest, in a sad and
grieved tone.
"Oh! La Pechina would never let them keep her," said the bailiff; "she
is quite able to swim across the river. I shall look along the banks.
Go home, my dear Olympe; and you gentlemen and madame, please to
follow the avenue towards Conches."
"What a country!" exclaimed the countess.
"There are scoundrels everywhere," replied Blondet.
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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 The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: yield to the magic charm of this woman whom he had so deeply loved,
and at whose hands his pride had suffered so bitterly. He closed his
eyes to shut out the dainty vision of that sweet face, of that
snow-white neck and graceful figure, round which the faint rosy light
of dawn was just beginning to hover playfully.
"Nay, Madame, it is no mask," he said icily; "I swore to
you. . .once, that my life was yours. For months now it has been your
plaything. . .it has served its purpose."
But now she knew that the very coldness was a mask. The
trouble, the sorrow she had gone through last night, suddenly came
back into her mind, but no longer with bitterness, rather with a
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters,
from all its pages, from all its sentences, the well-written novel
echoes and re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought; to
this must every incident and character contribute; the style must
have been pitched in unison with this; and if there is anywhere a
word that looks another way, the book would be stronger, clearer,
and (I had almost said) fuller without it. Life is monstrous,
infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; a work of art, in
comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, flowing and
emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate
thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of
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