| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: with the same result. Emma McChesney, you've made--actually
made, molded, shaped, and turned out two men. You're the
greatest sculptor that ever lived. You could make a scarecrow in
a field get up and achieve. Everywhere one sees women
over-wrought, over-stimulated, eager, tense. When there appears
one who has herself in leash, balanced, tolerant, poised, sane,
composed, she restores your faith in things. You lean on her,
spiritually. I know I need you more than you need me, Emma. And
I know you won't love me the less for that. There--that's about
all for this evening."
"I think," breathed Emma McChesney in a choked little voice,
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: where the horse-traders and the best of the blackguards from Central
Asia live; and, because he was very drunk indeed and the night was
dark, he could not rise again till I helped him. That was the
beginning of my acquaintance with McIntosh Jellaludin. When a
loafer, and drunk, sings The Song of the Bower, he must be worth
cultivating. He got off the camel's back and said, rather thickly:--
"I--I--I'm a bit screwed, but a dip in Loggerhead will put me right
again; and I say, have you spoken to Symonds about the mare's
knees?"
Now Loggerhead was six thousand weary miles away from us, close to
Mesopotamia, where you mustn't fish and poaching is impossible, and
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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 Lucile by Owen Meredith: Lit that festival hour, save what soft light was given
From the pure stars that peopled the deep-purple heaven.
He open'd the casement: he led her with him,
Hush'd in heart, to the terrace, dipp'd cool in the dim
Lustrous gloom of the shadowy laurels. They heard
Aloof, the invisible, rapturous bird,
With her wild note bewildering the woodlands: they saw
Not unheard, afar off, the hill-rivulet draw
His long ripple of moon-kindled wavelets with cheer
From the throat of the vale; o'er the dark sapphire sphere
The mild, multitudinous lights lay asleep,
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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 Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: these evils is economic. Economic causes make marriage
a matter of bargain and contract, in which
affection is quite secondary, and its absence constitutes
no recognized reason for liberation. Marriage
should be a free, spontaneous meeting of mutual
instinct, filled with happiness not unmixed with a
feeling akin to awe: it should involve that degree of
respect of each for the other that makes even the
most trifling interference with liberty an utter
impossibility, and a common life enforced by one against
the will of the other an unthinkable thing of deep
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