| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: over her head. It passed on; she staggered back-
wards, with her shoulders against the wall, ex-
hausted, as if she had been stranded there after a
storm and a shipwreck.
She opened her eyes after awhile; and listening
to the firm, leisurely footsteps going away with
their conquest, began to gather her skirts, staring
all the time before her. Suddenly she darted
through the open gate into the dark and deserted
street.
"Stop!" she shouted. "Don't go!"
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: the people of Little Britain. They shake their heads whenever
they go by Bow Church, and observe, that they never expected
any good to come of taking down that steeple, which in old
times told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of
Whittington and his Cat bears witness.
The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial
cheesemonger, who lives in a fragment of one of the old family
mansions, and is as magnificently lodged as a round-bellied
mite in the midst of one of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a
man of no little standing and importance; and his renown
extends through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even unto
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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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: To pay the men, to please a bride,
To use their stone, to spite their neighbours,
Not for a profit on their labours.
They built to edify or bewilder;
I build because I am a builder.
Crescent and street and square I build,
Plaster and paint and carve and gild.
Around the city see them stand,
These triumphs of my shaping hand,
With bulging walls, with sinking floors,
With shut, impracticable doors,
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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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: you who know so much, who have learned all things and forgotten
nothing; you who have passed through every social test. Talk to me,
amuse me, I am listening."
"What can I tell you that you do not know? Besides, the request is
ironical. You allow yourself no intercourse with social life; you
trample on its conventions, its laws, its customs, sentiments, and
sciences; you reduce them all to the proportions such things take when
viewed by you beyond this universe."
"Therefore you see, my friend, that I am not a woman. You do wrong to
love me. What! am I to leave the ethereal regions of my pretended
strength, make myself humbly small, cringe like the hapless female of
Seraphita |
