| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: there were too few good chances for talk; you never had time to
carry anything far.
"Too many things - too many things!" Paul said, quoting St.
George's exclamation of a few days before.
"Ah yes, for him there are too many - his life's too complicated."
"Have you seen it NEAR? That's what I should like to do; it might
explain some mysteries," her visitor went on. She asked him what
mysteries he meant, and he said: "Oh peculiarities of his work,
inequalities, superficialities. For one who looks at it from the
artistic point of view it contains a bottomless ambiguity."
She became at this, on the spot, all intensity. "Ah do describe
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be
expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not
awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some
servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and
aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial
music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air --
to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness
bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light.
That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier,
more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has
despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way.
Walden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: That's all right. Don't move."
M. Nioche stood staring, with a fallen jaw, not daring to put out his hand.
The lady, who sat facing him, turned round in her place and glanced upward
with a spirited toss of her head, displaying the agreeable features
of his daughter. She looked at Newman sharply, to see how he was looking
at her, then--I don't know what she discovered--she said graciously, "How d'
ye do, monsieur? won't you come into our little corner?"
"Did you come--did you come after ME? asked M. Nioche very softly.
"I went to your house to see what had become of you.
I thought you might be sick," said Newman.
"It is very good of you, as always," said the old man.
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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 From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: The 28th parallel, on reaching the American coast, traverses the
peninsula of Florida, dividing it into two nearly equal portions.
Then, plunging into the Gulf of Mexico, it subtends the arc
formed by the coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana;
then skirting Texas, off which it cuts an angle, it continues
its course over Mexico, crosses the Sonora, Old California,
and loses itself in the Pacific Ocean. It was, therefore,
only those portions of Texas and Florida which were situated
below this parallel which came within the prescribed conditions
of latitude.
Florida, in its southern part, reckons no cities of importance;
From the Earth to the Moon |
