| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: stared at his receding figure until it was small and far below
her, and then, the tears running over her eyelids now, turned
slowly, and walked with her hands gripped hard together behind
her, towards Stoney Cross again.
"I did not know," she whispered to herself. "I did not
understand. Even now--No, I do not understand."
THE ENVOY
XLI
So the story ends, dear Reader. Mr. Hoopdriver, sprawling down
there among the bracken, must sprawl without our prying, I think,
or listening to what chances to his breathing. And of what came
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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 Turn of the Screw by Henry James: I walked round the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected
that I had already, with him, hurt myself beyond repair.
Therefore I could patch up nothing, and it was too
extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into the pew:
he would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm
into mine and make me sit there for an hour in close,
silent contact with his commentary on our talk. For the first
minute since his arrival I wanted to get away from him.
As I paused beneath the high east window and listened to the sounds
of worship, I was taken with an impulse that might master me,
I felt, completely should I give it the least encouragement.
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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 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: mention of his name is made by our Poet in the Treatise de Vulg.
Eloq. 1. i. c. 15.
v. 76. Thou inn of grief.]
Thou most beauteous inn
Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee?
Shakespeare, Richard II a. 5. s. 1.
v. 89. Justinian's hand.] "What avails it that Justinian
delivered thee from the Goths, and reformed thy laws, if thou art
no longer under the control of his successors in the empire?"
v. 94. That which God commands.] He alludes to the precept-
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's."
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
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 Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: guilty of robbing me of it. He truly believes that he
is the real Lord Greystoke, and the chances are that he will
make a better English lord than a man who was born and
raised in an African jungle. You know that I am but half
civilized even now. Let me see red in anger but for a moment,
and all the instincts of the savage beast that I really
am, submerge what little I possess of the milder ways of
culture and refinement.
"And then again, had I declared myself I should have
robbed the woman I love of the wealth and position that
her marriage to Clayton will now insure to her. I could
The Return of Tarzan |
