| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: "You stay too much indoors," said the lawyer. "You should be
out, whipping up the circulation like Mr. Enfield and me. (This
is my cousin--Mr. Enfield--Dr. Jekyll.) Come now; get your
hat and take a quick turn with us."
"You are very good," sighed the other. "I should like to very
much; but no, no, no, it is quite impossible; I dare not. But
indeed, Utterson, I am very glad to see you; this is really a
great pleasure; I would ask you and Mr. Enfield up, but the place
is really not fit."
"Why, then," said the lawyer, good-naturedly, "the best thing
we can do is to stay down here and speak with you from where we
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: "Make her come here on some pretext or other."
"I don't know how I can manage that, Mother; it will hardly do for
me to patronize a Methodist preacher, even if she would consent to
be patronized by an idle shepherd, as Will Maskery calls me. You
should have come in a little sooner, Arthur, to hear Joshua's
denunciation of his neighbour Will Maskery. The old fellow wants
me to excommunicate the wheelwright, and then deliver him over to
the civil arm--that is to say, to your grandfather--to be turned
out of house and yard. If I chose to interfere in this business,
now, I might get up as pretty a story of hatred and persecution as
the Methodists need desire to publish in the next number of their
Adam Bede |
| 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: population of the air as from earth and sky alike the manifold music
of winged creatures combined in a single harmonious chorus. In the rye
the quail would be calling, and, in the grass, the corncrake, and over
them would be wheeling flocks of twittering linnets. Also, the
jacksnipe would be uttering its croak, and the lark executing its
roulades where it had become lost in the sunshine, and cranes sending
forth their trumpet-like challenge as they deployed towards the zenith
in triangle-shaped flocks. In fact, the neighbourhood would seem to
have become converted into one great concert of melody. O Creator, how
fair is Thy world where, in remote, rural seclusion, it lies apart
from cities and from highways!
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 The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: noble drama! Well, in these days the barbarians make words sparkle."
"Like a hair in a frost," said Monsieur de Clagny.
"So those are the airs you affect?"[*] retorted Lousteau.
[*] The rendering given above is only intended to link the various
speeches into coherence; it has no resemblance with the French. In
the original, "Font chatoyer les /mots/."
"Et quelquefois les /morts/," dit Monsieur de Clagny.
"Ah! Lousteau! vous vous donnez de ces R-la (airs-la)."
Literally: "And sometimes the dead."--"Ah, are those the airs you
assume?"--the play on the insertion of the letter R (/mots,
morts/) has no meaning in English.
The Muse of the Department |
