| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: attachment which united my father and mother was perhaps
partly due to the strange manner of their meeting; it knew,
at least, no bounds either divine or human; my father, for
her sake, determined to renounce his ambitions and abjure his
faith; and a week had not yet passed upon the march before he
had resigned from his party, accepted the Mormon doctrine,
and received the promise of my mother's hand on the arrival
of the party at Salt Lake.
The marriage took place, and I was its only offspring. My
father prospered exceedingly in his affairs, remained
faithful to my mother; and though you may wonder to hear it,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen
only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a
home, or beneath a matronly veil at church. Dreadful as it was,
she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand
witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him
and her, than to greet him face to face -- they two alone. She
fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded
the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her.
Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her
until it had repeated her name more than once, in
The Scarlet Letter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: which Ctesippus and all of them with one voice vehemently assented, and bid
him exhibit the power of his wisdom. Then I said: O Euthydemus and
Dionysodorus, I earnestly request you to do myself and the company the
favour to exhibit. There may be some trouble in giving the whole
exhibition; but tell me one thing,--can you make a good man of him only who
is already convinced that he ought to learn of you, or of him also who is
not convinced, either because he imagines that virtue is a thing which
cannot be taught at all, or that you are not the teachers of it? Has your
art power to persuade him, who is of the latter temper of mind, that virtue
can be taught; and that you are the men from whom he will best learn it?
Certainly, Socrates, said Dionysodorus; our art will do both.
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: woman weaving rainbow illusions; the ugly, clear-sighted, loving
son sitting at her side in one of his rare hours of pleasure, half-
beguiled, half-amused, wholly admiring, as he listens. But as he
goes home, and the fancy pictures fade, and Stowting is once more
burthened with debt, and the noisy companions and the long hours of
drudgery once more approach, no wonder if the dirty green seems all
the dirtier or if Atlas must resume his load.
But in healthy natures, this time of moral teething passes quickly
of itself, and is easily alleviated by fresh interests; and
already, in the letter to Frank Scott, there are two words of hope:
his friends in London, his love for his profession. The last might
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