| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: red-hot from head to heel, while the grass hissed and smoked
beneath his tread.
And when he saw the maiden alone, he stopped; and she looked
boldly up into his face without moving, and began her magic
song:-
'Life is short, though life is sweet; and even men of brass
and fire must die. The brass must rust, the fire must cool,
for time gnaws all things in their turn. Life is short,
though life is sweet: but sweeter to live for ever; sweeter
to live ever youthful like the Gods, who have ichor in their
veins - ichor which gives life, and youth, and joy, and a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: gardens and orchards and lawns and flower-plats and fountains,
and all kinds and sorts of things, until the sweat ran down his
face from hard thinking and wishing. And as he thought and
wished, all the things he thought and wished for grew up like
soap-bubbles from nothing at all.
Then, when day began to break, he wished himself with his fine
clothes to be in the palace that his own wits had made, and away
he flew through the air until he had come there safe and sound.
But when the sun rose and shone down upon the beautiful palace
and all the gardens and orchards around it, the king and queen
and all the court stood dumb with wonder at the sight. Then, as
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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 Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: disappointment. They would dine together at the worst, and, with
all respect to dear old Waymarsh--if not even, for that matter, to
himself--there was little fear that in the sequel they shouldn't
see enough of each other. The principle I have just mentioned as
operating had been, with the most newly disembarked of the two men,
wholly instinctive--the fruit of a sharp sense that, delightful as
it would be to find himself looking, after so much separation, into
his comrade's face, his business would be a trifle bungled should
he simply arrange for this countenance to present itself to the
nearing steamer as the first "note," of Europe. Mixed with
everything was the apprehension, already, on Strether's part, that
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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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: If, as has been stated, his intellection is slow, when unexcited,
it is most prompt and rapid when he is thoroughly aroused.
<17>Memory, logic, wit, sarcasm, invective pathos and bold
imagery of rare structural beauty, well up as from a copious
fountain, yet each in its proper place, and contributing to form
a whole, grand in itself, yet complete in the minutest
proportions. It is most difficult to hedge him in a corner, for
his positions are taken so deliberately, that it is rare to find
a point in them undefended aforethought. Professor Reason tells
me the following: "On a recent visit of a public nature, to
Philadelphia, and in a meeting composed mostly of his colored
My Bondage and My Freedom |
