| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: sunrise watching the setting of this strange new star.
And in a hundred observatories there had been suppressed
excitement, rising almost to shouting pitch, as the two remote
bodies had rushed together; and a hurrying to and fro, to gather
photographic apparatus and spectroscope, and this appliance and
that, to record this novel astonishing sight, the destruction of a
world. For it was a world, a sister planet of our earth, far
greater than our earth indeed, that had so suddenly flashed into
flaming death. Neptune it was, had been struck, fairly and
squarely, by the strange planet from outer space and the heat of
the concussion had incontinently turned two solid globes into one
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: The beauties of youth are frail, but this was a jewel of age.
Life, that delights in the brave, gave it himself for a gage.
Fair was the crown to behold, and beauty its poorest part -
At once the scar of the wound and the order pinned on the heart.
The beauties of man are frail, and the silver lies in the dust,
And the queen that we call to mind sleeps with the brave and the just;
Sleeps with the weary at length; but, honoured and ever fair,
Shines in the eye of the mind the crown of the silver hair.
Honolulu.
XXXIII - TO MY WIFE (A Fragment)
LONG must elapse ere you behold again
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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 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: But for the virtue, whose o'erruling sway
And providence have wrought thus quaintly. Here
The skill is look'd into, that fashioneth
With such effectual working, and the good
Discern'd, accruing to this upper world
From that below. But fully to content
Thy wishes, all that in this sphere have birth,
Demands my further parle. Inquire thou wouldst,
Who of this light is denizen, that here
Beside me sparkles, as the sun-beam doth
On the clear wave. Know then, the soul of Rahab
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
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 Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: That matter being finished, and the trunks being unpacked, she
decided to take her first bath in the sea, expecting me to support
her through the trying ordeal of the surf. As we were returning
from the beach we met a carriage containing a number of persons
with a family resemblance.
When Aunt Eliza saw them she angrily exclaimed, "Am I to see
those Uxbridges every day?"
Of the Uxbridges this much I knew--that the two brothers Uxbridge
were the lawyers of her opponents in the lawsuit which had existed
three or four years. I had never felt any interest in it, though I
knew that it was concerning a tract of ground in the city which had
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