| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: tell Messieurs Conyngham, Coyctier, Bridore, and also Tristan, to
leave their rooms and come here to mine.--You have incurred the
penalty of death," he said to Cornelius, who, happily, did not hear
him. "You have ten murders on your conscience!"
Thereupon Louis XI. gave a silent laugh, and made a pause. Presently,
remarking the strange pallor on the Fleming's face, he added:--
"You need not be uneasy; you are more valuable to bleed than to kill.
You can get out of the claws of MY justice by payment of a good round
sum to my treasury, but if you don't build at least one chapel in
honor of the Virgin, you are likely to find things hot for you
throughout eternity."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: warmest summer's day; and then one can guess at the secret of
intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath the delicate laces
and brilliant smile. There was no warmth, no brilliancy, no
summer for this woman; so the stupor and vacancy had time to
gnaw into her face perpetually. She was young, too, though no
one guessed it; so the gnawing was the fiercer.
She lay quiet in the dark corner, listening, through the
monotonous din and uncertain glare of the works, to the dull
plash of the rain in the far distance, shrinking back whenever
the man Wolfe happened to look towards her. She knew, in spite
of all his kindness, that there was that in her face and form
Life in the Iron-Mills |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: disconcerting evasion. It was the fantastic convention of the
time that a writer should not touch upon religion. To do so was
to rouse the jealous fury of the great multitude of professional
religious teachers. It was permitted to state the discord, but
it was forbidden to glance at any possible reconciliation.
Religion was the privilege of the pulpit....
It was not only from the novels that religion was omitted. It was
ignored by the newspapers; it was pedantically disregarded in the
discussion of business questions, it played a trivial and
apologetic part in public affairs. And this was done not out of
contempt but respect. The hold of the old religious organisations
The Last War: A World Set Free |
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 Philebus by Plato: justice, honesty, virtue, love, have a simple meaning; they have become
sacred to us,--'the word of God' written on the human heart: to no other
words can the same associations be attached. We cannot explain them
adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them of
their true character. We give them a meaning often paradoxical and
distorted, and generally weaker than their signification in common
language. And as words influence men's thoughts, we fear that the hold of
morality may also be weakened, and the sense of duty impaired, if virtue
and vice are explained only as the qualities which do or do not contribute
to the pleasure of the world. In that very expression we seem to detect a
false ring, for pleasure is individual not universal; we speak of eternal
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