| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: added that, but I remember I had a sort of dread over me that she
might do the same thing. Before my letter had reached her, she had
run away with a man who deserted her in six months. I saw her in
1884 in Paris, where she was living with her mother, and I asked
her whether the story had had anything to do with her action. She
told me that she had felt an absolutely irresistible impulse to
follow the heroine step by step in her strange and fatal progress,
and that it was with a feeling of real terror that she had looked
forward to the last few chapters of the story. When they appeared,
it seemed to her that she was compelled to reproduce them in life,
and she did so. It was a most clear example of this imitative
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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 Cavalry General by Xenophon: obtain the favour of the gods by sacrifices in behalf of the state
cavalry; and in the next place to make the great procession at the
festivals a spectacle worth seeing; and further, with regard to all
those public shows demanded by the state, wherever held,[1] whether in
the grounds of the Acadamy or the Lyceum, at Phaleron or within the
hippodrome, it is his business as commander of the knights to see that
every pageant of the sort is splendidly exhibited.
[1] Cf. Theophr. "Ch." vii. (Jebb ad loc. p. 204, n. 25).
But these, again, are memoranda.[2] To the question how the several
features of the pageant shall receive their due impress of beauty, I
will now address myself.
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: shore, moving parallel to it, yet gradually approaching, an
uncouth shape that seemed a vessel and yet not a vessel; two
stunted masts projected above, and below there could be read,
in dark letters that apparently swayed and trembled in the wan
lightning, as the thing moved on,
BRENTON'S REEF.
Philip, leaning against a rock, gazed into the darkness where
the apparition had been; even Harry felt a thrill of
half-superstitious wonder, and listened half mechanically to a
rough sailor's voice at his ear:--
"God! old Joe was right. There's one wreck that is bound to
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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 Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: seen this gesture in him. Moreover, if the habit had been acquired
through imitation, it is not probable that it would so soon have been
spontaneously discontinued by this child, and, as we shall immediately see,
by a second child, though the father still lived with his family.
This little girl, it may be added, resembles her Parisian grandfather
in countenance to an almost absurd degree. She also presents another and
very curious resemblance to him, namely, by practising a singular trick.
When she impatiently wants something, she holds out her little hand,
and rapidly rubs the thumb against the index and middle finger:
now this same trick was frequently performed under the same circumstances
by her grandfather.
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
