| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: still retreat at times from the vanities of the world,
which else might cling to me too closely, since I have been
promoted to be peer-spiritual of your forest-court. For,
indeed, I do find in myself certain indications and admonitions
that my day has past its noon; and none more cogent than this:
that daily of bad wine I grow more intolerant, and of good wine
have a keener and more fastidious relish. There is no surer
symptom of receding years. The ferryman is my faithful varlet.
I send him on some pious errand, that I may meditate in ghostly
privacy, when my presence in the forest can best be spared:
and when can it be better spared than now, seeing that the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: resentment can hurry some men, my nameless old persecutor had
provided me a monument at the stone-cutter's and would have
erected it in the parish-church; and this piece of notorious and
expensive villany had actually succeeded, had I not used my
utmost interest with the vestry, where it was carried at last but
by two voices, that I am still alive. That stratagem failing, out
comes a long sable elegy, bedeck'd with hour-glasses, mattocks,
sculls, spades, and skeletons, with an epitaph as confidently
written to abuse me, and my profession, as if I had been under
ground these twenty years.
And, after such barbarous treatment as this, can the world blame
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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 War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: out----"
"They've gone away across London," he said. "I guess
they've got a bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there,
Hampstead way, the sky is alive with their lights. It's like
a great city, and in the glare you can just see them moving.
By daylight you can't. But nearer--I haven't seen them--"
(he counted on his fingers) "five days. Then I saw a couple
across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the
night before last"--he stopped and spoke impressively--"it
was just a matter of lights, but it was something up in the
air. I believe they've built a flying-machine, and are learn-
War of the Worlds |
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 The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: of man may be said to be enamoured; it meets
them, however often they occur, with the same
ardour which a lover feels at the sight of his
mistress, and parts from them with the same regret
when they can no longer be enjoyed.
Of this kind are many descriptions which the
poets have transcribed from each other, and their
successors will probably copy to the end of time;
which will continue to engage, or, as the French
term it, to flatter the imagination, as long as
human nature shall remain the same.
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