| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: The City trembles, throbs, and pounds
Outside, and through a thousand sounds
The small intolerable drums
Of Time are like slow drops descending.
Bereft enough to shame a sage
And given little to long sighing,
With no illusion to assuage
The lonely changelessness of dying, --
Unsought, unthought-of, and unheard,
She sings and watches like a bird,
Safe in a comfortable cage
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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 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: and fell every time, and the last time most busted his
brains out, he thought he'd got to give it up; but after
he was rested he allowed he would give her one more
turn for luck, and this time he made the trip.
In the morning we was up at break of day, and down
to the nigger cabins to pet the dogs and make friends
with the nigger that fed Jim -- if it WAS Jim that was
being fed. The niggers was just getting through break-
fast and starting for the fields; and Jim's nigger was
piling up a tin pan with bread and meat and things;
and whilst the others was leaving, the key come from
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: from whom, and what he paid for it--from the first buyer
down to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily up
from thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars. He said
that the whole Ceramic world would be informed that it
was now in my possession and would make a note of it,
with the price paid. [Figure 8]
There were Masters in those days, but, alas--it is not so now.
Of course the main preciousness of this piece lies in its color;
it is that old sensuous, pervading, ramifying, interpolating,
transboreal blue which is the despair of modern art.
The little sketch which I have made of this gem cannot
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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 War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: the houses.
The first house we entered, after a little difficulty with
the window, was a small semi-detached villa, and I found
nothing eatable left in the place but some mouldy
cheese. There was, however, water to drink; and I took a
hatchet, which promised to be useful in our next house-
breaking.
We then crossed to a place where the road turns towards
Mortlake. Here there stood a white house within a walled
garden, and in the pantry of this domicile we found a store
of food--two loaves of bread in a pan, an uncooked steak, and
War of the Worlds |
