| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: foreknowledge that there was something very stiff I should have to
do for her. I felt more than ever committed to my fate as,
standing before her in the big drawing-room where they had
tactfully left us to ourselves, I tried with a smile to string
together the pearls of lucidity which, from her chair, she
successively tossed me. Pale and bright, in her monotonous
mourning, she was an image of intelligent purpose, of the passion
of duty; but I asked myself whether any girl had ever had so
charming an instinct as that which permitted her to laugh out, as
for the joy of her difficulty, into the priggish old room. This
remarkable young woman could be earnest without being solemn, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: Graham had looked from the balcony. They crawled
across the sloping transparency that covered this street
of platforms, crawling on hands and knees because of
the slipperiness of the snowfall.
For the most part the glass was bedewed, and Graham
saw only hazy suggestions of the forms below,
but near the pitch of the transparent roof the glass was
clear, and he found himself looking sheerly down upon
it all. For awhile, in spite of the urgency of his
guide, he gave way to vertigo and lay spread-eagled
on the glass, sick and paralysed. Far below, mere
When the Sleeper Wakes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: shame and death, which God so permits and ordains. See, here
begins the second work, or the second rest of the Third
Commandment; by this faith is very greatly tried, even as gold
in the fire. For it is a great thing to retain a sure confidence
in God, although He sends us death, shame, sickness, poverty; and
in this cruel form of wrath to regard Him as our all-gracious
Father, as must be done in this work of the Third Commandment.
Here suffering contains faith, that it must call upon God's Name
and praise it in such suffering, and so it comes through the
Third Commandment into the Second again; and through that very
calling on the Name of God and praise, faith grows, and becomes
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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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: head, 'the Count and Countess had lived in a very eccentric way; they
admitted no visitors; Madame lived on the ground-floor, and Monsieur
on the first floor. When the Countess was left alone, she was never
seen excepting at church. Subsequently, at home, at the chateau, she
refused to see the friends, whether gentlemen or ladies, who went to
call on her. She was already very much altered when she left la Grande
Breteche to go to Merret. That dear lady--I say dear lady, for it was
she who gave me this diamond, but indeed I saw her but once--that kind
lady was very ill; she had, no doubt, given up all hope, for she died
without choosing to send for a doctor; indeed, many of our ladies
fancied she was not quite right in her head. Well, sir, my curiosity
La Grande Breteche |
