| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: her,--a respectable middle-aged man, of benevolent countenance.
"O, Mas'r, please do buy my daughter!"
"I'd like to, but I'm afraid I can't afford it!" said the
gentleman, looking, with painful interest, as the young girl mounted
the block, and looked around her with a frightened and timid glance.
The blood flushes painfully in her otherwise colorless cheek,
her eye has a feverish fire, and her mother groans to see
that she looks more beautiful than she ever saw her before.
The auctioneer sees his advantage, and expatiates volubly in
mingled French and English, and bids rise in rapid succession.
"I'll do anything in reason," said the benevolent-looking
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: messages? Don't be shy. I'll deliver every word faithfully. And
if you would like to give me a kiss for him, I'll deliver that too,
dash me if I don't.
"He makes Mrs. Harry laugh with his patter. . . Oh, dear Mr.
Cloete, you are a calm, reasonable man. Make him behave sensibly.
He's a bit obstinate, you know, and he's so fond of the ship, too.
Tell him I am here - looking on. . . Trust me, Mrs. Dunbar. Only
shut that window, that's a good girl. You will be sure to catch
cold if you don't, and the Captain won't be pleased coming off the
wreck to find you coughing and sneezing so that you can't tell him
how happy you are. And now if you can get me a bit of tape to
Within the Tides |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: our own, man has striven to gain wings to fly into the sanctuary where
God hides from our gaze.
This digression was necessary to give a clue to the scene at which the
old man and the youth from the island under Notre-Dame had come to be
audience; it will also protect this narrative from all blame on the
score of falsehood and hyperbole, of which certain persons of hasty
judgment might perhaps suspect me.
Doctor Sigier was a tall man in the prime of life. His face, rescued
from oblivion by the archives of the University, had singular
analogies with that of Mirabeau. It was stamped with the seal of
fierce, swift, and terrible eloquence. But the Doctor bore on his brow
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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 God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: are beings of strain and conflict and competition. They are living
substance still mingled painfully with the dust. The forms in which
this being clothes itself bear thorns and fangs and claws, are
soaked with poison and bright with threats or allurements, prey
slyly or openly on one another, hold their own for a little while,
breed savagely and resentfully, and pass. . . .
This second Being men have called the Life Force, the Will to Live,
the Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother
Nature. We may speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the
Gnostics meant by the Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed
all the Gnostic books that must remain a mere curious guess. We may
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