| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: literature: while his rich curly hair, fine eyes, and exquisite
white hands gave him the dangerous and delightful distinction of
being different from others. There was something in him of
Balzac's Lucien de Rubempre. At times he reminds us of Julien
Sorel. De Quincey saw him once. It was at a dinner at Charles
Lamb's. 'Amongst the company, all literary men, sat a murderer,'
he tells us, and he goes on to describe how on that day he had been
ill, and had hated the face of man and woman, and yet found himself
looking with intellectual interest across the table at the young
writer beneath whose affectations of manner there seemed to him to
lie so much unaffected sensibility, and speculates on 'what sudden
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: waxen Image, while the terrors of the tempest were ever deepening
about her,--raving of winds and booming of waters and a shaking
of the land. And before her, even as she prayed her
dream-prayer, the waxen Virgin became tall as a woman, and
taller,--rising to the roof and smiling as she grew. Then Carmen
would have cried out for fear, but that something smothered her
voice,--paralyzed her tongue. And the Virgin silently stooped
above her, and placed in her arms the Child,--the brown Child
with the Indian face. And the Child whitened in her hands and
changed,--seeming as it changed to send a sharp pain through her
heart: an old pain linked somehow with memories of bright windy
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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 Aspern Papers by Henry James: My experiment was turning out costly, yet now that I had all
but taken possession I ceased to allow this to trouble me.
I mentioned to my companion a few of the things that I should put in,
but she replied rather more precipitately than usual that I might
do exactly what I liked; she seemed to wish to notify me that the
Misses Bordereau would take no overt interest in my proceedings.
I guessed that her aunt had instructed her to adopt this tone, and I
may as well say now that I came afterward to distinguish perfectly
(as I believed) between the speeches she made on her own responsibility
and those the old lady imposed upon her. She took no notice of the unswept
condition of the rooms and indulged in no explanations nor apologies.
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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 The Rig Veda: of
the bowls from moisture of the sky.
6 Even as the beams of Surya, urging men to speed, that cheer
and send
to sleep, together rush they forth,
These swift outpourings in long course of holy rites: no form
save
only Indra shows itself so pure.
7 As down the steep slope of a river to the vale, drawn from
the Steer
the swift strong draughts have found a way.
The Rig Veda |
