| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: before him while he lay looking up at her; himself not wholly on
the ground, but half-raised and upheld - conscious, yes, of
tenderness of support and, more particularly, of a head pillowed in
extraordinary softness and faintly refreshing fragrance. He
considered, he wondered, his wit but half at his service; then
another face intervened, bending more directly over him, and he
finally knew that Alice Staverton had made her lap an ample and
perfect cushion to him, and that she had to this end seated herself
on the lowest degree of the staircase, the rest of his long person
remaining stretched on his old black-and-white slabs. They were
cold, these marble squares of his youth; but HE somehow was not, in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: met.
I could not see her features; they were lost in the shadow of the
hood. But I saw a shiver run through her from head to foot. And
I knew then that I had made no mistake.
'That is too heavy for you, my girl,' I said familiarly, as I
might have spoken to a village wench. 'I will carry it for you.'
One of the men, who remained lolling at the table, laughed, and
the other began to sing a low song. The woman trembled in rage
or fear; but she kept silence and let me take the jug from her
hands; and when I went to the door and opened it, she followed
mechanically. An instant, and the door fell to behind us,
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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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: playing the rogue with him. Next he resorted to remonstrance, but was
met with the reply, "How could we not do our best for our barin? You
yourself saw how well we laboured at the ploughing and the sowing, for
you gave us mugs of vodka for our pains."
"Then why have things turned out so badly?" the barin persisted.
"Who can say? It must be that a grub has eaten the crop from below.
Besides, what a summer has it been--never a drop of rain!"
Nevertheless, the barin noted that no grub had eaten the PEASANTS'
crops, as well as that the rain had fallen in the most curious
fashion--namely, in patches. It had obliged the muzhiks, but had shed
a mere sprinkling for the barin.
Dead Souls |
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 Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: then holding the fire in its glowing heart all through the night.
Its bark is the most serviceable of all the products of the
wilderness. In Russia, they say, it is used in tanning, and gives
its subtle, sacerdotal fragrance to Russia leather. But here, in
the woods, it serves more primitive ends. It can be peeled off in
a huge roll from some giant tree and fashioned into a swift canoe
to carry man over the waters. It can be cut into square sheets to
roof his shanty in the forest. It is the paper on which he writes
his woodland despatches, and the flexible material which he bends
into drinking-cups of silver lined with gold. A thin strip of it
wrapped around the end of a candle and fastened in a cleft stick
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