| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: Danny?"
I jest nodded agin.
"And what was it you seen him do? How did
he kill himself?" they all asts to oncet.
_I_ didn't know. So I jest bellers and boo-hoos
some more. Things was getting past anything I
could see the way out of.
"He might of hung himself to one of the iron
rings in the jists above the forge," says another
woman. "He clumb onto the forge to tie the rope
to one of them rings, and he tied the other end
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy
to snivelling and giggles.
These may seem selfish considerations; but you can't, in sound
morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It
is his clear duty. And least of all you can condemn an artist
pursuing, however humbly and imperfectly, a creative aim. In
that interior world where his thought and his emotions go seeking
for the experience of imagined adventures, there are no
policemen, no law, no pressure of circumstance or dread of
opinion to keep him within bounds. Who then is going to say Nay
to his temptations if not his conscience?
Some Reminiscences |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: open window was the quiet, serene darkness, where the stars shone clear,
and tranquil perfumes hung in the cloisters. But while the guest lay
sleeping all night in unchanged position like a child, up and down
between the oleanders went Padre Ignacio, walking until dawn. Temptation
indeed had come over the hill and entered the cloisters.
III
Day showed the ocean's surface no longer glassy, but lying like a mirror
breathed upon; and there between the short headlands came a sail, gray
and plain against the flat water. The priest watched through his glasses,
and saw the gradual sun grow strong upon the canvas of the barkentine.
The message from his world was at hand, yet to-day he scarcely cared so
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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 Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: some of his so-called miracles. "You should have brought him with
you," he said to the last speaker, who was still standing. "Tell us
what you know about him," he commanded.
Then the stranger said that he himself, whose name was Jacob, having a
daughter who was very ill, had gone to Capernaum to implore the Master
to heal his child. The Master had answered him, saying: "Return to thy
home: she is healed!" And he had found his daughter standing at the
threshold of his house, having risen from her couch when the gnomon
had marked the third hour, the same moment when he had made his
supplication to Jesus.
The Pharisees admitted that certain mysterious arts and powerful herbs
Herodias |
