| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: place to bury him. Finally I found a very suitable spot round the
corner there, where it isn't rock, in which one can't dig and the
soil is not liable to be flooded. In fact I went so far as to
clear away the bush and to mark out the grave with its foot to
the east. In this climate one can't delay, you know."
Weak as I was, I smiled. This practical proceeding was so
exactly like Bastin.
"Well, you wasted your labour," exclaimed Bickley.
"Yes, I am glad to say I did. But I don't think it was your
operations and the rest that cured him, Bickley, although you
take all the credit. I believe it was the Life-water that the
When the World Shook |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: seeking means to get from his prison to the hotel de Poitiers.
About ten o'clock Cornelius and his sister, convinced that their new
inmate was sleeping, retired to their rooms. The young man studied
carefully the sounds they made in doing so, and thought he could
recognize the position of their apartments; they must, he believed,
occupy the whole second floor. Like all the houses of that period,
this floor was next below the roof, from which its windows projected,
adorned with spandrel tops that were richly sculptured. The roof
itself was edged with a sort of balustrade, concealing the gutters for
the rain water which gargoyles in the form of crocodile's heads
discharged into the street. The young seigneur, after studying this
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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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: not without its advantages. But it is said to be a somewhat dull
occupation, and it certainly does not lead to much beyond a kind of
ostentatious obscurity. The only form of lying that is absolutely
beyond reproach is lying for its own sake, and the highest
development of this is, as we have already pointed out, Lying in
Art. Just as those who do not love Plato more than Truth cannot
pass beyond the threshold of the Academe, so those who do not love
Beauty more than Truth never know the inmost shrine of Art. The
solid stolid British intellect lies in the desert sands like the
Sphinx in Flaubert's marvellous tale, and fantasy, LA CHIMERE,
dances round it, and calls to it with her false, flute-toned voice.
|
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 Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all."
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor--
Prufrock/Other Observations |
