| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: gave her pleasure, but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment
to forget her aim. And as it always happens in contests of cunning
that a stupid person gets the better of cleverer ones, Helene-
having realized that the main object of all these words and all this
trouble was, after converting her to Catholicism, to obtain money from
her for Jesuit institutions (as to which she received indications)-
before parting with her money insisted that the various operations
necessary to free her from her husband should be performed. In her
view the aim of every religion was merely to preserve certain
proprieties while affording satisfaction to human desires. And with
this aim, in one of her talks with her Father Confessor, she
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: at home. She says she's sick of it. She has left home
twice. I don't blame the child, but I've always managed to
bring her back. Some day there'll be a third time--and I'm
afraid of it. She's not bad. She's really rather splendid,
and she has a certain dreadful philosophy of her own. Her
theory is that there are only two kinds of people in the
world. Those that give, and those that take. And she's
tired of giving. Sarah didn't put it just that way; but you
know what she means, don't you?"
"I know what she means," said Fanny, grimly.
So it was Sarah she saw above all else in her trip through
Fanny Herself |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: spoken of to Miss Staverton as ministering so little, for those who
might have watched it, to edification, he was positively rather
liked than not. He was a dim secondary social success - and all
with people who had truly not an idea of him. It was all mere
surface sound, this murmur of their welcome, this popping of their
corks - just as his gestures of response were the extravagant
shadows, emphatic in proportion as they meant little, of some game
of OMBRES CHINOISES. He projected himself all day, in thought,
straight over the bristling line of hard unconscious heads and into
the other, the real, the waiting life; the life that, as soon as he
had heard behind him the click of his great house-door, began for
|
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: was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted
it, and went on to assume the how of this splitting of the human
species. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory;
though, for myself, I very soon felt that it fell far short of
the truth.
`At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it
seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the
present merely temporary and social difference between the
Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key to the whole position.
No doubt it will seem grotesque enough to you--and wildly
incredible!--and yet even now there are existing circumstances
The Time Machine |
