| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head
And wring the awful sceptre from his fist,
Were he as famous and as bold in war
As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.
RICHARD.
I know it well, Lord Warwick, blame me not;
'T is love I bear thy glories makes me speak.
But in this troublous time what's to be done?
Shall we go throw away our coats of steel
And wrap our bodies in black mourning-gowns,
Numbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: negative immunity from accident. The tale has a root there;
it grows in that soil; it has a spine of its own behind the
words. Better if the country be real, and he has walked
every foot of it and knows every milestone. But even with
imaginary places, he will do well in the beginning to provide
a map; as he studies it, relations will appear that he had
not thought upon; he will discover obvious, though
unsuspected, short-cuts and footprints for his messengers;
and even when a map is not all the plot, as it was in
TREASURE ISLAND, it will be found to be a mine of suggestion.
CHAPTER VI - THE GENESIS OF 'THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE'
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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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: in the days of the Emperor Paul[5]. At this moment the clock uttered
its usual hissing sound, and struck ten, while a woman's face peered
in at the door, but at once withdrew, for the reason that, with the
object of sleeping as well as possible, Chichikov had removed every
stitch of his clothing. Somehow the face seemed to him familiar, and
he set himself to recall whose it could be. At length he recollected
that it was the face of his hostess. His clothes he found lying, clean
and dry, beside him; so he dressed and approached the mirror,
meanwhile sneezing again with such vehemence that a cock which
happened at the moment to be near the window (which was situated at no
great distance from the ground) chuckled a short, sharp phrase.
Dead Souls |
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 A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: pleasurable anecdote to tell of; but he had travell'd straight on,
looking neither to his right hand nor his left, lest Love or Pity
should seduce him out of his road.
Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself, were it
possible to get there with such tempers, would want objects to give
it; every gentle spirit would come flying upon the wings of Love to
hail their arrival. - Nothing would the souls of Smelfungus and
Mundungus hear of, but fresh anthems of joy, fresh raptures of
love, and fresh congratulations of their common felicity. - I
heartily pity them; they have brought up no faculties for this
work; and, were the happiest mansion in heaven to be allotted to
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