| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: never been strong enough--to outweigh his prejudices, scruples,
principles, or whatever one chose to call them. Susy's dignity
might go up like tinder in the blaze of her love; but his was
made of a less combustible substance. She had felt, in their
last talk together, that she had forever destroyed the inner
harmony between them.
Well--there it was, and the fault was doubtless neither hers nor
his, but that of the world they had grown up in, of their own
moral contempt for it and physical dependence on it, of his
half-talents and her half-principles, of the something in them
both that was not stout enough to resist nor yet pliant enough
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: make fun of the whole affair, to picture him strutting
vaingloriously among these inferior creatures, or compare a
religious friendship in the sixteenth century with what was
called, I think, a literary friendship in the eighteenth.
But it is more just and profitable to recognise what there is
sterling and human underneath all his theoretical
affectations of superiority. Women, he has said in his
"First Blast," are, "weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and
foolish;" and yet it does not appear that he was himself any
less dependent than other men upon the sympathy and affection
of these weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish
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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 Poems of William Blake by William Blake: Art thou a Worm? image of weakness. art thou but a Worm?
I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lillys leaf;
Ah weep not little voice, thou can'st not speak, but thou can'st weep:
Is this a Worm? I see they lay helpless & naked: weeping
And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mothers smiles.
The Clod of Clay heard the Worms voice & rais'd her pitying head:
She bowd over the weeping infant, and her life exhald
In milky fondness, then on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes
O beauty of the vales of Har, we live not for ourselves,
Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed:
My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark,
Poems of William Blake |
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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: assure you, my dear friend, he was in one of his happy hours."
But I wasn't thinking of that. "Truly indeed these Americans!" I
said. "With her father in the very act, as it were, of swindling
her betrothed!"
Mrs. Mulville stared. "Oh I suppose Mr. Anvoy has scarcely gone
bankrupt--or whatever he has done--on purpose. Very likely they
won't be able to keep it up, but there it was, and it was a very
beautiful impulse."
"You say Saltram was very fine?"
"Beyond everything. He surprised even me."
"And I know what YOU'VE enjoyed." After a moment I added: "Had he
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