| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: sympathetic mood.
She shook her bowed, overweighted head and cried in a stifled voice
but with a rising inflection:
"Go away! Go away! Go away!"
I got up then and approached her, with a strange sort of anxiety.
I looked down at her round, strong neck, then stooped low enough to
peep at her face. And I began to tremble a little myself.
"What on earth are you gone wild about, Miss Don't Care?"
She flung herself backwards violently, her head going over the back
of the chair. And now it was her smooth, full, palpitating throat
that lay exposed to my bewildered stare. Her eyes were nearly
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: At the sound of the distant and dim cataract,
In the presence of nature's immensities? Say,
Have you hung o'er the torrent, bedew'd with its spray,
And, leaving the rock-way, contorted and roll'd,
Like a huge couchant Typhon, fold heaped over fold,
Track'd the summits from which every step that you tread
Rolls the loose stones, with thunder below, to the bed
Of invisible waters, whose mistical sound
Fills with awful suggestions the dizzy profound?
And, laboring onwards, at last through a break
In the walls of the world, burst at once on the lake?
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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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: instrument, began to scatter its melodies abroad. He had a
monkey on his shoulder, dressed in a Highland plaid; and, to
complete the sum of splendid attractions wherewith he presented
himself to the public, there was a company of little figures,
whose sphere and habitation was in the mahogany case of his
organ, and whose principle of life was the music which the Italian
made it his business to grind out. In all their variety of
occupation,--the cobbler, the blacksmith, the soldier, the lady
with her fan, the toper with his bottle, the milkmaid sitting by
her, cow--this fortunate little society might truly be said to
enjoy a harmonious existence, and to make life literally a dance.
House of Seven Gables |
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 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: STRANGER. From Space, from Space, Sir: whence else?
I. Pardon me, my Lord, but is not your Lordship already in Space,
your Lordship and his humble servant, even at this moment?
STRANGER. Pooh! what do you know of Space? Define Space.
I. Space, my Lord, is height and breadth indefinitely prolonged.
STRANGER. Exactly: you see you do not even know what Space is.
You think it is of Two Dimensions only; but I have come
to announce to you a Third -- height, breadth, and length.
I. Your Lordship is pleased to be merry. We also speak
of length and height, or breadth and thickness, thus denoting
Two Dimensions by four names.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
