| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: of a column of SCHLAGS in the dictonary, and a column
and a half of ZUGS. The word SCHLAG means Blow, Stroke,
Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind,
Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure,
Field, Forest-clearing. This is its simple and EXACT
meaning--that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning;
but there are ways by which you can set it free,
so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning,
and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please
to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to.
You can begin with SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: with the beginnings of brain fever. The disease made rapid progress;
we nursed him. Juste at once called in the chief physician of the
hospital where he was working as house-surgeon. I was then living
alone in our room, and I was the most attentive attendant; but care
and science alike were in vain. By the month of January, 1838, Marcas
himself felt that he had but a few days to live.
The man whose soul and brain he had been for six months never even
sent to inquire after him. Marcas expressed the greatest contempt for
the Government; he seemed to doubt what the fate of France might be,
and it was this doubt that had made him ill. He had, he thought,
detected treason in the heart of power, not tangible, seizable
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: trouble her with no obtrusive questions. I, therefore, at first,
confined myself to a few general inquiries about her health and
welfare, and a few commendations on the beauty of the park, and of
the little girl that should have been a boy: a small delicate
infant of seven or eight weeks old, whom its mother seemed to
regard with no remarkable degree of interest or affection, though
full as much as I expected her to show.
Shortly after my arrival, she commissioned her maid to conduct me
to my room and see that I had everything I wanted; it was a small,
unpretending, but sufficiently comfortable apartment. When I
descended thence - having divested myself of all travelling
Agnes Grey |
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 The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: belonged no doubt to this farm. These fields were like bowers,
separated by banks which were planted with trees. The road which led
to them was barred by the trunk of an old, half-rotten tree,--a Breton
method of enclosure the name of which may furnish, further on, a
digression which will complete the characterization of this region.
Between the stairway cut in the schist rock and the path closed by
this old tree, in front of the marsh and beneath the overhanging rock,
several granite blocks roughly hewn, and piled one upon the other,
formed the four corners of the cottage and held up the planks,
cobblestones, and pitch amalgam of which the walls were made. The fact
that one half of the roof was covered with furze instead of thatch,
The Chouans |
