| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: something much more confusing. This, with a fatal great rush, was
simply the fact that they were thus together. They were near,
near, and all she had imagined of that had only become more true,
more dreadful and overwhelming. She stared straight away in
silence till she felt she looked an idiot; then, to say something,
to say nothing, she attempted a sound which ended in a flood of
tears.
CHAPTER XVI
Her tears helped her really to dissimulate, for she had instantly,
in so public a situation, to recover herself. They had come and
gone in half a minute, and she immediately explained them. "It's
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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: you might have the same desire. My sorrow is great that I have never
yet been able to confess that wicked thought; but I fear it would be
repeated to him and he would avenge it. I have shamed you," she
continued, distressed by his silence, "I deserve your blame."
And she broke the vial by flinging it on the floor violently.
"Do not come," she said, "my husband sleeps lightly; my duty is to
wait for the help of Heaven--that will I do!"
She tried to leave the chapel.
"Ah!" cried the young man, "order me to do so and I will kill him. You
will see me to-night."
"I was wise to destroy that drug," she said in a voice that was faint
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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 Parmenides by Plato: True.
If there be no one in the others, the others are neither many nor one.
They are not.
Nor do they appear either as one or many.
Why not?
Because the others have no sort or manner or way of communion with any sort
of not-being, nor can anything which is not, be connected with any of the
others; for that which is not has no parts.
True.
Nor is there an opinion or any appearance of not-being in connexion with
the others, nor is not-being ever in any way attributed to the others.
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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 The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: broader and more rapid than the Rhone," and the times when Hannibal
led his grim Africans to its banks, and his elephants thrust their
trunks into the yellow waters over which that pendulum ferry-boat
was swinging back and forward every ten minutes!
- Here are some of those reminiscences, with morals prefixed, or
annexed, or implied.
Lively emotions very commonly do not strike us full in front, but
obliquely from the side; a scene or incident in UNDRESS often
affects us more than one in full costume.
"Is this the mighty ocean? - is this all?"
says the Princess in Gebir. The rush that should have flooded my
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
