| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: father," he said. "I draw my life from him; the flesh upon my bones is
his, the bread I am fed with is the wages of these horrors." He
recalled his mother, and ground his forehead in the earth. He thought
of flight, and where was he to flee to? of other lives, but was there
any life worth living in this den of savage and jeering animals?
The interval before the execution was like a violent dream. He met his
father; he would not look at him, he could not speak to him. It seemed
there was no living creature but must have been swift to recognise that
imminent animosity; but the hide of the Justice-Clerk remained
impenetrable. Had my lord been talkative, the truce could never have
subsisted; but he was by fortune in one of his humours of sour silence;
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: This was not included in their first plan. In fact, when the boat was
abandoned at the sources of the Mercy, it had been agreed that after having
surveyed the west coast, they should go back to it, and return to Granite
House by the Mercy. Harding then thought that the western coast would have
offered refuge, either to a ship in distress, or to a vessel in her regular
course; but now, as he saw that this coast presented no good anchorage, he
wished to seek on the south what they had not been able to find on the
west.
Gideon Spilett proposed to continue the exploration, that the question of
the supposed wreck might be completely settled, and he asked at what
distance Claw Cape might be from the extremity of the peninsula.
The Mysterious Island |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: That "go myself" made Joseph tremble in his skin. Desroches winked at
him to let his mother go downstairs first, and then the lawyer
detained the young man for a single moment.
"Your brother is a great scoundrel; he is the cause of the discovery
of this conspiracy,--intentionally or not, I can't say, for the rascal
is so sly no one can find out the exact truth as to that. Fool or
traitor,--take your choice. He will be put under the surveillance of
the police, nothing more. You needn't be uneasy; no one knows this
secret but myself. Go to Issoudun with your mother. You have good
sense; try to save the property."
"Come, my poor mother, Desroches is right," said Joseph, rejoining
|
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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: called Barnstorff, who insisted that Mr. W. H. was no less a person
than "Mr. William Himself." Nor would he allow for a moment that
the Sonnets are mere satires on the work of Drayton and John Davies
of Hereford. To him, as indeed to me, they were poems of serious
and tragic import, wrung out of the bitterness of Shakespeare's
heart, and made sweet by the honey of his lips. Still less would
he admit that they were merely a philosophical allegory, and that
in them Shakespeare is addressing his Ideal Self, or Ideal Manhood,
or the Spirit of Beauty, or the Reason, or the Divine Logos, or the
Catholic Church. He felt, as indeed I think we all must feel, that
the Sonnets are addressed to an individual, - to a particular young
|
