| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: sense alone, that blind and dumb analogue for the body of what
consciousness is for the soul. Only when disturbed, troubled, does
the water itself become visible, and then it is but the surface that
we see. So to the Far Oriental this still little lake typifies the
soul, the eventual purification of his own; a something lost in
reflection, self-effaced, only the alter ego of the outer world.
For contemplation, not action, is the Far Oriental's ideal of life.
The repose of self-adjustment like that to which our whole solar
system is slowly tending as its death,--this to him appears, though
from no scientific deduction, the end of all existence. So he sits
and ponders, abstractly, vaguely, upon everything in general,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: am again. Now! The world expects me to marry. But what do I expect?"
There was a raw unheated wound in Carley's heart. Seldom had she permitted
herself to think about it, let alone to probe it with hard materialistic
queries. But custom to her was as inexorable as life. If she chose to live
in the world she must conform to its customs. For a woman marriage was the
aim and the end and the all of existence. Nevertheless, for Carley it could
not be without love. Before she had gone West she might have had many of
the conventional modern ideas about women and marriage. But because out
there in the wilds her love and perception had broadened, now her
arraignment of herself and her sex was bigger, sterner, more exacting. The
months she had been home seemed fuller than all the months of her life. She
The Call of the Canyon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: the pet of the family: father, mother, and sister, all combined to
spoil me - not by foolish indulgence, to render me fractious and
ungovernable, but by ceaseless kindness, to make me too helpless
and dependent - too unfit for buffeting with the cares and turmoils
of life.
Mary and I were brought up in the strictest seclusion. My mother,
being at once highly accomplished, well informed, and fond of
employment, took the whole charge of our education on herself, with
the exception of Latin - which my father undertook to teach us - so
that we never even went to school; and, as there was no society in
the neighbourhood, our only intercourse with the world consisted in
Agnes Grey |
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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: how this poor man's vanity gave at least bread to the labourer,
peasant, and citizen; and his profuse expenditure, like water
spilt on the ground, refreshed the lowly herbs and plants where
it fell. But thou! Whom hast thou enriched during thy career of
extravagance, save those brokers of the devil--vintners, panders,
gamblers, and horse-jockeys?" The anguish produced by this self-
reproof was so strong that I put my hand suddenly to my forehead,
and was obliged to allege a sudden megrim to my attendant, in
apology for the action, and a slight groan with which it was
accompanied.
I then made an effort to turn my thoughts into a more
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