| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: drowne my selfe for the loue of a Gynney Hen, I would
change my Humanity with a Baboone
Rod. What should I do? I confesse it is my shame
to be so fond, but it is not in my vertue to amend it
Iago. Vertue? A figge, 'tis in our selues that we are
thus, or thus. Our Bodies are our Gardens, to the which,
our Wills are Gardiners. So that if we will plant Nettels,
or sowe Lettice: Set Hisope, and weede vp Time:
Supplie it with one gender of Hearbes, or distract it with
many: either to haue it sterrill with idlenesse, or manured
with Industry, why the power, and Corrigeable authoritie
Othello |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: Touches, have not chosen to give up the share of influence they
exercised in Paris, and have not closed their houses.
The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the
last refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its
reserved depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite
politeness. You will there still find grace of manner notwithstanding
the conventionalities of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk
notwithstanding the reserve which is natural to persons of breeding,
and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas. No one there thinks of
keeping his thought for a play; and no one regards a story as material
for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of literature at bay never
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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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: of cariboo and the mixing-pan."
When his men, converts by his own hand, had gained the bank, the
trio fell to their knees, hands and backs burdened with camp
equipage, and offered up thanks for their passage through the
wilderness and their safe arrival. Hay Stockard looked upon the
function with sneering disapproval, the romance and solemnity of
it lost to his matter-of-fact soul. Baptiste the Red, still
gazing across, recognized the familiar postures, and remembered
the girl who had shared his star-roofed couch in the hills and
forests, and the woman-child who lay somewhere by bleak Hudson's
Bay.
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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 Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: seem to declare that the despised person is not worth looking
at or is disagreeable to behold. The accompanying photograph
(Plate V. fig. 1) by Mr. Rejlander, shows this form of disdain.
It represents a young lady, who is supposed to be tearing up
the photograph of a despised lover.
The most common method of expressing contempt is by movements
about the nose, or round the mouth; but the latter movements,
when strongly pronounced, indicate disgust. The nose may be slightly
turned up, which apparently follows from the turning up of the upper lip;
or the movement may be abbreviated into the mere wrinkling of the nose.
The nose is often slightly contracted, so as partly to close the passage;[3]
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
