| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: strangeness was an intimation of that - their chatter of tongues,
their gaiety and good humour, their infinite dawdling (they were
always getting themselves up, but it took forever, and Pemberton
had once found Mr. Moreen shaving in the drawing-room), their
French, their Italian and, cropping up in the foreign fluencies,
their cold tough slices of American. They lived on macaroni and
coffee - they had these articles prepared in perfection - but they
knew recipes for a hundred other dishes. They overflowed with
music and song, were always humming and catching each other up, and
had a sort of professional acquaintance with Continental cities.
They talked of "good places" as if they had been pickpockets or
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: pushed out on the river.
The saffron and golden lights in the sky diffused
themselves over the surface of the water, and spread from the bow
of the canoe in deeper waves of purple and orange, as he paddled
swiftly up stream. The pale yellow gas-lamps of the town faded
behind him. The lumber-yards and factories and disconsolate
little houses of the outskirts seemed to melt away. In a little
while he was floating between dark walls of forest, through the
heart of the wilderness.
The night deepened around him and the sky hung out its
thousand lamps. Odours of the woods floated on the air: the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: looking in at the windows of the rich and curious shops, the jewellery
establishments glittering with quaint Japanese ornaments, the restaurants
decked with streamers and banners, the tea-houses, where the odorous beverage
was being drunk with saki, a liquor concocted from the fermentation of rice,
and the comfortable smoking-houses, where they were puffing, not opium,
which is almost unknown in Japan, but a very fine, stringy tobacco.
He went on till he found himself in the fields, in the midst of vast
rice plantations. There he saw dazzling camellias expanding themselves,
with flowers which were giving forth their last colours and perfumes,
not on bushes, but on trees, and within bamboo enclosures, cherry, plum,
and apple trees, which the Japanese cultivate rather for their blossoms
Around the World in 80 Days |
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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: Abandoning his secret plan --
Which was (as well the craft seer
Had from the first divined) to clear
The wall and fraudulently seize
On Juno's poultry in the trees.
G.J.
INCOME, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of
respectability, the commonly accepted standards being artificial,
arbitrary and fallacious; for, as "Sir Sycophas Chrysolater" in the
play has justly remarked, "the true use and function of property (in
whatsoever it consisteth -- coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-
The Devil's Dictionary |
