| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Waste Land |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: Pont de Montvert. He was a conscientious person, who seems to have
been intended by nature for a pirate, and now fifty-five, an age by
which a man has learned all the moderation of which he is capable.
A missionary in his youth in China, he there suffered martyrdom,
was left for dead, and only succoured and brought back to life by
the charity of a pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid of
second-sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an
experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man of the
desire to persecute; but the human spirit is a thing strangely put
together; and, having been a Christian martyr, Du Chayla became a
Christian persecutor. The Work of the Propagation of the Faith
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood
within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept
awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and
the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I
had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly
evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that
incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had
already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward
the worse.
Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversions to the
dryness of a life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: one."
"And can this madman, for such I hold him," said the traveller,
"know aught like good skill of his trade?"
"Oh, sir, in that let us give the devil his due--Mulciber
himself, with all his Cyclops, could hardly amend him. But
assuredly there is little wisdom in taking counsel or receiving
aid from one who is but too plainly in league with the author of
evil."
"I must take my chance of that, good Master Holiday," said
Tressilian, rising; "and as my horse must now have eaten his
provender, I must needs thank you for your good cheer, and pray
Kenilworth |
