| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: this was of the world he had lived in, and he was more at his ease
certainly for the countenance, coldly general and impersonal, that
all the while and in spite of his detachment it seemed to give him.
He had support of course mostly in the rooms at the wide front and
the prolonged side; it failed him considerably in the central
shades and the parts at the back. But if he sometimes, on his
rounds, was glad of his optical reach, so none the less often the
rear of the house affected him as the very jungle of his prey. The
place was there more subdivided; a large "extension" in particular,
where small rooms for servants had been multiplied, abounded in
nooks and corners, in closets and passages, in the ramifications
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Which he deserues to loose.
Whether he was combin'd with those of Norway,
Or did lyne the Rebell with hidden helpe,
And vantage; or that with both he labour'd
In his Countreyes wracke, I know not:
But Treasons Capitall, confess'd, and prou'd,
Haue ouerthrowne him
Macb. Glamys, and Thane of Cawdor:
The greatest is behinde. Thankes for your paines.
Doe you not hope your Children shall be Kings,
When those that gaue the Thane of Cawdor to me,
Macbeth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: Nature's making. If but some Roman would return from Hades
(Martial, for choice), and tell me by what conduct of the
voice these thundering verses should be uttered - 'AUT
LACEDOE-MONIUM TARENTUM,' for a case in point - I feel as if
I should enter at last into the full enjoyment of the best of
human verses.
But, again, the five feet are all iambic, or supposed to be;
by the mere count of syllables the four groups cannot be all
iambic; as a question of elegance, I doubt if any one of them
requires to be so; and I am certain that for choice no two of
them should scan the same. The singular beauty of the verse
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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 Glasses by Henry James: she wore to me what other ground was left? I lost her, but I
caught my train. In truth she was so changed that one hated to see
it; and now that she was in charitable hands one didn't feel
compelled to make great efforts. I had studied her face for a
particular beauty; I had lived with that beauty and reproduced it;
but I knew what belonged to my trade well enough to be sure it was
gone for ever.
CHAPTER XII
I was soon called back to Folkestone; but Mrs. Meldrum and her
young friend had already left England, finding to that end every
convenience on the spot and not having had to come up to town. My
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