| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: Pressing, and Packing Company."
"'What a number of things it does!' exclaimed Ethel, when I showed her
the company's check."
"'Yes,' I replied, and quoted Browning to her: ''Twenty-nine Distinct
damnations. One sure if the other fails.' Beverly's mother has a lot of
it.'"
"But Ethel did not smile. 'Richard,' she said, 'I do wish you had more
investments with ordinary simple names, like New York and New Haven, or
Chicago and Northwestern.' And when I told her that I thought this was
really unreasonable, she was firm. 'Yes,' she replied, 'I don't like the
names--not most of them, at least. Dutchess and Columbia Traction sounds
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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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: ocean, if life, attaining to God across worlds and stars, through
Matter and Spirit, has to come down again to some other goal?'
"You desire to see both aspects of the universe at once. You would
adore the Sovereign on condition of being suffered to sit for an
instant on His throne. Mad fools that we are! We will not admit that
the most intelligent animals are able to understand our ideas and the
object of our actions; we are merciless to the creatures of the
inferior spheres, and exile them from our own; we deny them the
faculty of divining human thoughts, and yet we ourselves would fain
master the highest of all ideas--the Idea of the Idea!
"Well, go then, start! Fly by faith up from globe to globe, soar
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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 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: And sometimes, 'I've been really a coward,' she would tell me. You
know, sick people they say things. And so she would say too:
'I've been conceited, headstrong, capricious. I sought my own
gratification. I was selfish or afraid.' . . . But sick people,
you know, they say anything. And once, after lying silent almost
all day, she said: 'Yes; perhaps, when the day came I would not
have gone. Perhaps! I don't know,' she cried. 'Draw the curtain,
papa. Shut the sea out. It reproaches me with my folly.'" He
gasped and paused.
"So you see," he went on in a murmur. "Very ill, very ill indeed.
Pneumonia. Very sudden." He pointed his finger at the carpet,
'Twixt Land & Sea |
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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: "Wait awhile, for I am Death!"
"Where my lover calls I go--
Shame it were to treat him coldly--
'Twas a fish that circled so,
Turning over boldly."
Dainty foot and tender heart,
Wait the loaded ferry-cart.
"Wait, ah, wait!" the ripple saith;
"Maiden, wait, for I am Death!"
"When my lover calls I haste-
Dame Disdain was never wedded!"
The Second Jungle Book |
