| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait and a carriage of the
head, and, in a moment, PATET DEA. Before I left I assured
Clarisse of my hearty admiration. She took it like milk, without
embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily with her
great eyes; and I own the result upon myself was some confusion.
If Clarisse could read English, I should not dare to add that her
figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a case for stays; but
that may perhaps grow better as she gets up in years.
Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might say at home, is
a place memorable in the story of the Camisards. It was here that
the war broke out; here that those southern Covenanters slew their
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: that the two last expand before entering the heart, and there form, as it
were, two pouches denominated the auricles of the heart, which are
composed of a substance similar to that of the heart itself; and that
there is always more warmth in the heart than in any other part of the
body- and finally, that this heat is capable of causing any drop of blood
that passes into the cavities rapidly to expand and dilate, just as all
liquors do when allowed to fall drop by drop into a highly heated vessel.
For, after these things, it is not necessary for me to say anything more
with a view to explain the motion of the heart, except that when its
cavities are not full of blood, into these the blood of necessity flows, -
- from the hollow vein into the right, and from the venous artery into the
Reason Discourse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: to meddle, but hain't you forgot something?"
He studied a second, and says -
"Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of."
"Think," says I.
He thought. Then he says -
"No, I can't seem to have forgot anything. What is it?"
"Look at me," says I, "look me all over."
He done it.
"Well?" says he.
"Well," says I, "you don't notice anything? If I branched out
amongst the elect looking like this, wouldn't I attract
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: performances to a sufficient distance from the eye. Democracy
shuts the past against the poet, but opens the future before him.
As all the citizens who compose a democratic community are nearly
equal and alike, the poet cannot dwell upon any one of them; but
the nation itself invites the exercise of his powers. The general
similitude of individuals, which renders any one of them taken
separately an improper subject of poetry, allows poets to include
them all in the same imagery, and to take a general survey of the
people itself. Democractic nations have a clearer perception than
any others of their own aspect; and an aspect so imposing is
admirably fitted to the delineation of the ideal.
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