| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: world is travel so great a pleasure as in that country. But
unhappily our one need was to be secret; and all this rapid and
animated picture of the road swept quite apart from us, as we
lumbered up hill and down dale, under hedge and over stone, among
circuitous byways. Only twice did I receive, as it were, a whiff
of the highway. The first reached my ears alone. I might have
been anywhere. I only knew I was walking in the dark night and
among ruts, when I heard very far off, over the silent country that
surrounded us, the guard's horn wailing its signal to the next
post-house for a change of horses. It was like the voice of the
day heard in darkness, a voice of the world heard in prison, 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 A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: ready to avenge his death.
"I have only to add, that you have my full permission to make
what use of this communication you please, and either to reject
it altogether, or allow it such credit as you think it deserves;
and I shall be ready at all times to furnish you with any further
information on this subject which you may require, and which it
may be in my power to afford.
"ARDVOIRLICH,
15TH JANUARY, 1830."
The publication of a statement so particular, and probably so
correct, is a debt due to the memory of James Stewart; the
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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 Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: bigger either than her or him, and her soul was still within her.
She did this for him in his need, even if he left her, for she
loved him.
All the while the peewits were screaming in the field.
When he came to, he wondered what was near his eyes, curving and
strong with life in the dark, and what voice it was speaking.
Then he realised it was the grass, and the peewit was calling.
The warmth was Clara's breathing heaving. He lifted his head,
and looked into her eyes. They were dark and shining and strange,
life wild at the source staring into his life, stranger to him,
yet meeting him; and he put his face down on her throat, afraid.
Sons and Lovers |
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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: makes sul, if I recollect right, signify some active principle of
combustion, and phur the passive one. It was left for more patient and
less noisy men, like Grimm, Bopp, and Buttmann, to found a science of
philology, to discover for us those great laws which connect modern
philology with history, ethnology, physiology, and with the very deepest
questions of theology itself. And in the meanwhile, these Alexandrians'
worthless criticism has been utterly swept away; while their real work,
their accurate editions of the classics, remain to us as a precious
heritage. So it is throughout history: nothing dies which is worthy to
live. The wheat is surely gathered into the garner, the chaff is burnt
up by that eternal fire which, happily for this universe, cannot be
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