| 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: preparation for the lament. We have nearly the same images in
both. For either victim the high groves and forest dells murmur;
the flowers exhale sad perfume from their buds; the nightingale
mourns on the craggy lands, and the swallow in the long-winding
vales; 'the satyrs, too, and fauns dark-veiled groan,' and the
fountain nymphs within the wood melt into tearful waters. The
sheep and goats leave their pasture; and oreads, 'who love to scale
the most inaccessible tops of all uprightest rocks,' hurry down
from the song of their wind-courting pines; while the dryads bend
from the branches of the meeting trees, and the rivers moan for
white Procris, 'with many-sobbing streams,'
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: Was it the quickening of joy to pain? In the midst of his joy at
any rate he felt his buried face grow hot as with some communicated
knowledge that had the force of a reproach. It suddenly made him
contrast that very rapture with the bliss he had refused to
another. This breath of the passion immortal was all that other
had asked; the descent of Mary Antrim opened his spirit with a
great compunctious throb for the descent of Acton Hague. It was as
if Stransom had read what her eyes said to him.
After a moment he looked round in a despair that made him feel as
if the source of life were ebbing. The church had been empty - he
was alone; but he wanted to have something done, to make a last
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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 in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: sight against the wall. Do you remember rare moments when a
sudden light flashed over yourself, your world, God? when you
stood on a mountain-peak, seeing your life as it might have
been, as it is? one quick instant, when custom lost its force
and every-day usage? when your friend, wife, brother, stood in
a new light? your soul was bared, and the grave,--a foretaste
of the nakedness of the Judgment-Day? So it came before him,
his life, that night. The slow tides of pain he had borne
gathered themselves up and surged against his soul. His squalid
daily life, the brutal coarseness eating into his brain, as the
ashes into his skin: before, these things had been a dull
Life in the Iron-Mills |
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 Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: cupboards, he began to walk
down the passage.
"Indeed, indeed, you will stick
fast, Mr.Jackson!"
"Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs.
Tittlemouse!"
First he squeezed into the pantry.
"Tiddly, widdly, widdly? No
honey? No honey, Mrs. Tittlemouse?"
There were three creepy-crawly
people hiding in the plate rack.
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