| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: Is Amandus / Is my Amanda still alive?
they fly into each other's arms, and both drop down dead for joy.
There is a soft aera in every gentle mortal's life, where such a story
affords more pabulum to the brain, than all the Frusts, and Crusts, and
Rusts of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.
--'Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of
what Spon and others, in their accounts of Lyons, had strained into it; and
finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God knows--That sacred to
the fidelity of Amandus and Amanda, a tomb was built without the gates,
where, to this hour, lovers called upon them to attest their truths--I
never could get into a scrape of that kind in my life, but this tomb of 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 Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: evoke between these two infinitudes the illusions that nourish youth,
--we pressed each other's hands at every change in the sheet of water
or the sheets of air, for we took those slight phenomena as the
visible translation of our double thought. Who has never tasted in
wedded love that moment of illimitable joy when the soul seems freed
from the trammels of flesh, and finds itself restored, as it were, to
the world whence it came? Are there not hours when feelings clasp each
other and fly upward, like children taking hands and running, they
scarce know why? It was thus we went along.
At the moment when the village roofs began to show like a faint gray
line on the horizon, we met a fisherman, a poor man returning to
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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 The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: liberal. The king, with him, is to be always the father of his
people; which is tantamount to saying, that the people are to be
always children, and in a condition of tutelage; voluntary, if
possible: if not, of tutelage still. Of self-government, and
education of human beings into free manhood by the exercise of self-
government, free will, free thought--of this Fenelon had surely not
a glimpse. A generation or two passed by, and then the peoples of
Europe began to suspect that they were no longer children, but come
to manhood; and determined (after the example of Britain and
America) to assume the rights and duties of manhood, at whatever
risk of excesses or mistakes: and then "Telemaque" was relegated--
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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 Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: claimed kinship, stating that he had been unable to write earlier,
as he had found it very difficult to trace his grand-nephew's
address. Adam was delighted and replied cordially; he had often
heard his father speak of the older branch of the family with whom
his people had long lost touch. Some interesting correspondence had
ensued. Adam eagerly opened the letter which had only just arrived,
and conveyed a cordial invitation to stop with his grand-uncle at
Lesser Hill, for as long a time as he could spare.
"Indeed," Richard Salton went on, "I am in hopes that you will make
your permanent home here. You see, my dear boy, you and I are all
that remain of our race, and it is but fitting that you should
Lair of the White Worm |
