| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: "To judge by what has happened during the past year," said Monsieur
Clousier, "this change of government is simply a premium given to an
evil that is sapping us,--individualism. Fifteen years hence all
questions of a generous nature will be met by, /What is that to me?/--
the great cry of Freedom of Will descending from the religious heights
where Luther, Calvin, Zwinglius, and Knox introduced it, into even
political economy. /Every one for himself/; /every man his own
master/,--those two terrible axioms form, with the /What is that to
me?/ a trinity of wisdom to the burgher and the small land-owner. This
egotism results from the vices of our present civil legislation (too
hastily made), to which the revolution of July has just given a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: LORD ILLINGWORTH. If you have, Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray, pray say it.
We are quite by ourselves here. Whatever it is, I need not say I
will not repeat it.
GERALD. Mother?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. If you would like to be alone with your son, I
will leave you. You may have some other reason you don't wish me
to hear.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I have no other reason.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Then, my dear boy, we may look on the thing as
settled. Come, you and I will smoke a cigarette on the terrace
together. And Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray let me tell you, that I think
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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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: the risk of being lashed like a dog at a post--yes! unless thou
hadst the gallant heart to leave me to die alone, and upon my
desolate hearth, the last spark of thy father's fire, and of thy
forsaken mother's life, to be extinguished together!"--Hamish
traversed the hut with an impatient and angry pace.
"Mother," he said at length, "concern not yourself about such
things. I cannot be subjected to such infamy, for never will I
deserve it; and were I threatened with it, I should know how to
die before I was so far dishonoured."
"There spoke the son of the husband of my heart!" replied
Elspat, and she changed the discourse, and seemed to listen in
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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 The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: that might be of use against the Morlocks.
`Suddenly Weena came very close to my side. So suddenly that
she startled me. Had it not been for her I do not think I should
have noticed that the floor of the gallery sloped at all.
[Footnote: It may be, of course, that the floor did not slope,
but that the museum was built into the side of a hill.-ED.] The
end I had come in at was quite above ground, and was lit by rare
slit-like windows. As you went down the length, the ground came
up against these windows, until at last there was a pit like the
"area" of a London house before each, and only a narrow line of
daylight at the top. I went slowly along, puzzling about the
The Time Machine |
