| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: that I am looking forward to a speedy emancipation. Only let the
stormy severity of this winter weather be somewhat abated, and
then, some morning, Mr. Huntingdon will come down to a solitary
breakfast-table, and perhaps be clamouring through the house for
his invisible wife and child, when they are some fifty miles on
their way to the Western world, or it may be more: for we shall
leave him hours before the dawn, and it is not probable he will
discover the loss of both until the day is far advanced.
I am fully alive to the evils that may and must result upon the
step I am about to take; but I never waver in my resolution,
because I never forget my son. It was only this morning, while I
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: All things go right as of their will.
PART II.
38. 1. (Those who) possessed in highest degree the attributes (of the
Tao) did not (seek) to show them, and therefore they possessed them
(in fullest measure). (Those who) possessed in a lower degree those
attributes (sought how) not to lose them, and therefore they did not
possess them (in fullest measure).
2. (Those who) possessed in the highest degree those attributes did
nothing (with a purpose), and had no need to do anything. (Those who)
possessed them in a lower degree were (always) doing, and had need to
be so doing.
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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 Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door -
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.
Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
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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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: brother-artists, who, at the present moment holds a place, as the
saying is, "in the sun," and who suggested the rather bitter
reflections by which this sketch of his life is introduced,--
reflections that are applicable to many other individuals of the tribe
of artists.
In 1832, Fougeres lived in the rue de Navarin, on the fourth floor of
one of those tall, narrow houses which resemble the obelisk of Luxor,
and possess an alley, a dark little stairway with dangerous turnings,
three windows only on each floor, and, within the building, a
courtyard, or, to speak more correctly, a square pit or well. Above
the three or four rooms occupied by Grassou of Fougeres was his
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