| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: England to raise a statue in his honour.
"Having vanquished whatever there is to vanquish, men and things,
marshes, rocks, and sandy wastes," he had ceased to believe in
obstacles, and wished to begin Suez over again at Panama. He
began again with the same methods as of old; but he had aged,
and, besides, the faith that moves mountains does not move them
if they are too lofty. The mountains resisted, and the
catastrophe that ensued destroyed the glittering aureole of glory
that enveloped the hero. His life teaches how prestige can grow
and how it can vanish. After rivalling in greatness the most
famous heroes of history, he was lowered by the magistrates of
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story,
Of the old time entombed.
VI.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: we find quite opposite results. The great Spanish mystics, who
carried the habit of ecstasy as far as it has often been carried,
appear for the most part to have shown indomitable spirit and
energy, and all the more so for the trances in which they
indulged.
Saint Ignatius was a mystic, but his mysticism made him assuredly
one of the most powerfully practical human engines that ever
lived. Saint John of the Cross, writing of the intuitions and
"touches" by which God reaches the substance of the soul, tells
us that--
"They enrich it marvelously. A single one of them may be
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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 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: the waiters who were, however, indifferent or deaf.
"Hi, you, git a russle on yehs! What deh hell yehs lookin' at?
Two more beehs, d'yeh hear?"
He leaned back and critically regarded the person of a girl
with a straw-colored wig who upon the stage was flinging her heels
in somewhat awkward imitation of a well-known danseuse.
At times Maggie told Pete long confidential tales of her
former home life, dwelling upon the escapades of the other members
of the family and the difficulties she had to combat in order to
obtain a degree of comfort. He responded in tones of philanthropy.
He pressed her arm with an air of reassuring proprietorship.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
