| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: pleasantly your thoughts would be diversified, as you
walked the Edinburgh streets! For you might pause, in
some business perplexity, in the midst of the city
traffic, and perhaps catch the eye of a shepherd as he
sat down to breathe upon a heathery shoulder of the
Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin, clambering in a
country elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his
flushed and rustic visage; or a fisher racing seawards,
with the tiller under his elbow, and the sail sounding in
the wind, would fling you a salutation from between
Anst'er and the May.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: general action by which almost all the muscles of the body are at
the same time rendered rigid. It is quite different from the gentle
closure of the eyes which often accompanies, as Gratiolet remarks,[19]
the smelling a delicious odour, or the tasting a delicious morsel,
and which probably originates in the desire to shut out any disturbing
impression through the eyes.
[19] `De la Physionomie,' 1865, p. 217.
Professor Donders writes to me to the following effect:
"I have observed some cases of a very curious affection when,
after a slight rub (_attouchement_), for example, from the friction
of a coat, which caused neither a wound nor a contusion,
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: self-respect, had tried to put some of that un-
worthy food into his mouth. But after dropping
his fork twice and generally making a failure of
it, he had sat still with an air of intense mortifica-
tion combined with a ghastly glazed stare. Both
Giles and I had avoided looking his way at
table.
On the verandah he stopped short on purpose to
address to us anxiously a long remark which I
failed to understand completely. It sounded like
some horrible unknown language. But when
The Shadow Line |
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 Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: been spoiled in some way or other, for I have never heard of
anybody in these days who would give even so much as a bad penny
for it; and yet it is worth just as much now as it was when Babo
sold it to the king.
I had sat listening to these jolly folk for all this time, and I
had not heard old Sindbad say a word, and yet I knew very well he
was full of a story, for every now and then I could see his lips
move, and he would smile, and anon he would stroke his long white
beard and smile again.
Everybody clapped their hands and rattled their canicans after
the Blacksmith had ended his story, and methought they liked it
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