| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: see Scott Dalgleish himself on the matter. I take the opportunity
here to warn you that my head is simply spinning with a multitude
of affairs, and I shall probably forget a half of my business at
last.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
VAILIMA, APRIL 1894.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - I have at last got some photographs, and hasten
to send you, as you asked, a portrait of Tusitala. He is a strange
person; not so lean, say experts, but infinitely battered; mighty
active again on the whole; going up and down our break-neck road at
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: Did any bandit dare so bold a stroke,
Unless indeed he were suborned from Thebes?
CREON
So 'twas surmised, but none was found to avenge
His murder mid the trouble that ensued.
OEDIPUS
What trouble can have hindered a full quest,
When royalty had fallen thus miserably?
CREON
The riddling Sphinx compelled us to let slide
The dim past and attend to instant needs.
Oedipus Trilogy |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: He pulled out the slip of paper, and was crossing over to
decipher it under the lamp, when an errand-boy appeared out of
the obscurity, and approached the house. Nick drew back, and
the boy, unlatching the gate, ran up the steps and gave the bell
a pull.
Almost immediately the door opened; and there stood Susy, the
light full upon her, and upon a red-checked child against her
shoulder. The space behind them was dark, or so dimly lit that
it formed a black background to her vivid figure. She looked at
the errand-boy without surprise, took his parcel, and after he
had turned away, lingered a moment in the door, glancing down
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: After the description of the general character of this new force,
Faraday states with the emphasis here reproduced its mode of action:
'The law of action appears to be that the line or axis of
MAGNE-CRYSTALLIC force (being the resultant of the action of all the
molecules) tends to place itself parallel, or as a tangent, to the
magnetic curve, or line of magnetic force, passing through the place
where the crystal is situated.' The magne-crystallic force,
moreover, appears to him 'to be clearly distinguished from the
magnetic or diamagnetic forces, in that it causes neither approach
nor recession, consisting not in attraction or repulsion, but in
giving a certain determinate position to the mass under its
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