| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: other lives, and render them not worth having by the very process
of providing for their support. In this respect he was a child,
--a child for the whole term of his existence, be it long or short.
Indeed, his life seemed to be standing still at a period little
in advance of childhood, and to cluster all his reminiscences about
that epoch; just as, after the torpor of a heavy blow, the sufferer's
reviving consciousness goes back to a moment considerably behind
the accident that stupefied him. He sometimes told Phoebe and
Hepzibah his dreams, in which he invariably played the part of a
child, or a very young man. So vivid were they, in his relation
of them, that he once held a dispute with his sister as to the
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: She turned with flashing eager eyes, looking from one to the
other of us.
"It would be so wonderful--would it not? To compare the
history of two thousand years, to see what the differences are--
between us, who are only mothers, and you, who are mothers
and fathers, too. Of course we see, with our birds, that the father
is as useful as the mother, almost. But among insects we find him
of less importance, sometimes very little. Is it not so with you?"
"Oh, yes, birds and bugs," Terry said, "but not among animals--
have you NO animals?"
"We have cats," she said. "The father is not very useful."
Herland |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: nevertheless God-fearing and anxious consciences find by
experience that it brings the greatest consolation, because
consciences cannot be set at rest through any works, but only
by faith, when they take the sure ground that for Christ's
sake they have a reconciled God. As Paul teaches Rom. 5, 1:
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. This whole
doctrine is to be referred to that conflict of the terrified
conscience, neither can it be understood apart from that
conflict. Therefore inexperienced and profane men judge ill
concerning this matter, who dream that Christian righteousness
is nothing but civil and philosophical righteousness.
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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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: as somebody once said, are the things that do not concern us. As
long as a thing is useful or necessary to us, or affects us in any
way, either for pain or for pleasure, or appeals strongly to our
sympathies, or is a vital part of the environment in which we live,
it is outside the proper sphere of art. To art's subject-matter we
should be more or less indifferent. We should, at any rate, have
no preferences, no prejudices, no partisan feeling of any kind. It
is exactly because Hecuba is nothing to us that her sorrows are
such an admirable motive for a tragedy. I do not know anything in
the whole history of literature sadder than the artistic career of
Charles Reade. He wrote one beautiful book, THE CLOISTER AND THE
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