| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: "I have been staying at Budmouth for a few days while my
house was getting ready. The house I am going into is that
one they call High-Place Hall--the old stone one looking
down the lane to the market. Two or three rooms are fit for
occupation, though not all: I sleep there to-night for the
first time. Now will you think over my proposal, and meet
me here the first fine day next week, and say if you are
still in the same mind?"
Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect of a change
from an unbearable position, joyfully assented; and the two
parted at the gate of the churchyard.
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: should return in a few minutes, but on no account to say that she
had spoken to me of M. de B----.
"My horror was so great, that I shed tears as I went along,
hardly knowing from what feeling they flowed. I entered a
coffee-house close by, and placing myself at a table, I buried my
face between my hands, as though I would turn my eyes inward to
ascertain what was passing in my heart. Still, I dared not
recall what I had heard the moment before. I strove to look upon
it as a dream; and was more than once on the point of returning
to my lodgings, determined to attach no importance to what I had
heard.
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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 Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: two years ago. But I found out all about him. His case helped me
to realize how lasting can be the effect of a very trifling occurrence.
When he was an apprentice-blacksmith in our village, and I a schoolboy,
a couple of young Englishmen came to the town and sojourned a while;
and one day they got themselves up in cheap royal finery and did
the Richard III swordfight with maniac energy and prodigious powwow,
in the presence of the village boys. This blacksmith cub was there,
and the histrionic poison entered his bones. This vast, lumbering, ignorant,
dull-witted lout was stage-struck, and irrecoverably. He disappeared,
and presently turned up in St. Louis. I ran across him there, by and by.
He was standing musing on a street corner, with his left hand on his hip,
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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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: lashed in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his
whale-boat's bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused
the loose leather sheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb
there now came a levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent
harpoon burned there like a serpent's tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab
by the arm--"God, God is against thee, old man; forbear! 'tis an
ill voyage! ill begun, ill continued; let me square the yards, while
we may, old man, and make a fair wind of it homewards, to go on a
better voyage than this."
Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to the
braces--though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the
Moby Dick |
