| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed
them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms,
and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He
suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most
insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of
certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his
eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but
peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did
not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden
slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: something beyond what they actually saw. The very essence of the
force of imagination lies in its ability to change a man's habitat
for him. Without it, man would forever have remained, not a mollusk,
to be sure, but an animal simply. A plant cannot change its place,
an animal cannot alter its conditions of existence except within
very narrow bounds; man is free in the sense nothing else in the
world is.
What is true of individuals has been true of races. The most
imaginative races have proved the greatest factors in the world's
advance.
Now after this look at our own side of the world, let us turn to
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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 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: of work, and whom he reproved only in these words, "Ah! Beauty, you
little know the mischief you have done!"), some strangers called to
see him; but they at once retired, respecting the great man's
occupation. In every more or less lofty life, there is a little dog
"Beauty." When the Marechal de Richelieu came to pay his respects to
Louis XV. after taking Mahon, one of the greatest feats of arms of the
eighteenth century, the King said to him, "Have you heard the great
news? Poor Lansmatt is dead."--Lansmatt was a gatekeeper in the secret
of the King's intrigues.
The bankers of Paris never knew how much they owed to Contenson. That
spy was the cause of Nucingen's allowing an immense loan to be issued
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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 Aspern Papers by Henry James: which my banker had given me, and Miss Tita had to make a big
fist to receive it. This she did with extreme solemnity,
though I tried to treat the affair a little as a joke.
It was in no jocular strain, yet it was with simplicity,
that she inquired, weighing the money in her two palms:
"Don't you think it's too much?" To which I replied that that
would depend upon the amount of pleasure I should get for it.
Hereupon she turned away from me quickly, as she had done
the day before, murmuring in a tone different from any she had
used hitherto: "Oh, pleasure, pleasure--there's no pleasure
in this house!"
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