| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: and he must have remarked patronizingly how different he was from
Eve, forgetting how different she was from him ... at any rate,
Clara told Amory much about herself that evening. She had had a
harried life from sixteen on, and her education had stopped
sharply with her leisure. Browsing in her library, Amory found a
tattered gray book out of which fell a yellow sheet that he
impudently opened. It was a poem that she had written at school
about a gray convent wall on a gray day, and a girl with her
cloak blown by the wind sitting atop of it and thinking about the
many-colored world. As a rule such sentiment bored him, but this
was done with so much simplicity and atmosphere, that it brought
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: will be Lincoln like a keeper just behind him; they
won't let him go about alone. Trust them. You're a
queer fellow. One of these fun pokers. I see now why
you have been clipping your words so oddly, but--"
He stopped abruptly, and Graham could see his
gesture.
"As if Ostrog would let the Sleeper run about
alone! No, you're telling that to the wrong man
altogether. Eh! as if I should believe. What's your
game? And besides, we've been talking of the
Sleeper."
When the Sleeper Wakes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: by Captain Nemo reciting these lines from Virgil:
"Est Carpathio Neptuni gurgite vates, Caeruleus Proteus,"
as he pointed to a spot on the planisphere.
It was indeed the ancient abode of Proteus, the old shepherd of Neptune's
flocks, now the Island of Scarpanto, situated between Rhodes and Crete.
I saw nothing but the granite base through the glass panels of the saloon.
The next day, the 14th of February, I resolved to employ some hours in
studying the fishes of the Archipelago; but for some reason or other the
panels remained hermetically sealed. Upon taking the course of the Nautilus,
I found that we were going towards Candia, the ancient Isle of Crete.
At the time I embarked on the Abraham Lincoln, the whole of this
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: and set the air shaking in the leafy glens. I have heard people
passing by night in sleeping cities; some of them sang; one, I
remember, played loudly on the bagpipes. I have heard the rattle
of a cart or carriage spring up suddenly after hours of stillness,
and pass, for some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay
abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad in the black
hours, and with something of a thrill we try to guess their
business. But here the romance was double: first, this glad
passenger, lit internally with wine, who sent up his voice in music
through the night; and then I, on the other hand, buckled into my
sack, and smoking alone in the pine-woods between four and five
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