| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: circumstances, it was proper to render her pecuniary assistance, I cannot
help thinking his pressing invitation to her to visit us at Churchhill
perfectly unnecessary. Disposed, however, as he always is to think the
best of everyone, her display of grief, and professions of regret, and
general resolutions of prudence, were sufficient to soften his heart and
make him really confide in her sincerity; but, as for myself, I am still
unconvinced, and plausibly as her ladyship has now written, I cannot make
up my mind till I better understand her real meaning in coming to us. You
may guess, therefore, my dear madam, with what feelings I look forward to
her arrival. She will have occasion for all those attractive powers for
which she is celebrated to gain any share of my regard; and I shall
Lady Susan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: the leg by the tall soldier, and then, before he
was entirely awake, he found himself running
down a wood road in the midst of men who were
panting from the first effects of speed. His can-
teen banged rhythmically upon his thigh, and his
haversack bobbed softly. His musket bounced
a trifle from his shoulder at each stride and made
his cap feel uncertain upon his head.
He could hear the men whisper jerky sen-
tences: "Say--what's all this--about?" "What
th' thunder--we--skedaddlin' this way fer?"
The Red Badge of Courage |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: lets himself go, but does not FLOW; and precisely before the man
of the great current he stands all the colder and more reserved--
his eye is then like a smooth and irresponsive lake, which is no
longer moved by rapture or sympathy. The worst and most dangerous
thing of which a scholar is capable results from the instinct of
mediocrity of his type, from the Jesuitism of mediocrity, which
labours instinctively for the destruction of the exceptional man,
and endeavours to break--or still better, to relax--every bent
bow To relax, of course, with consideration, and naturally with
an indulgent hand--to RELAX with confiding sympathy that is the
real art of Jesuitism, which has always understood how to
Beyond Good and Evil |
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 Reef by Edith Wharton: the passing of years, it had gradually acquired a less
inimical character, had become, not again a castle of
dreams, evoker of fair images and romantic legend, but the
shell of a life slowly adjusted to its dwelling: the place
one came back to, the place where one had one's duties,
one's habits and one's books, the place one would naturally
live in till one died: a dull house, an inconvenient house,
of which one knew all the defects, the shabbinesses, the
discomforts, but to which one was so used that one could
hardly, after so long a time, think one's self away from it
without suffering a certain loss of identity.
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