| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: mine."
The doctor was unable to cope with this speech, which conveyed
vaguely monstrous ideas to him. Seeing Trefusis about to leave,
he said in a low voice: "Will you go upstairs?"
"Upstairs! Why?"
"I--I thought you might wish to see--" He did not finish the
sentence, but Trefusis flinched; the blank had expressed what was
meant.
"To see something that was Henrietta, and that is a thing we must
cast out and hide, with a little superstitious mumming to save
appearances. Why did you remind me of it?"
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: in her shoes--even the sound of those flat feet stumping up the stairs made
her feel sick, but once they were face to face she felt immensely calm and
indifferent, and could not understand why she even worried about money, nor
why she sneaked out of the house on tiptoe, not even daring to shut the
door after her in case the landlady should hear and shout something
terrible, nor why she spent nights pacing up and down her room--drawing up
sharply before the mirror and saying to a tragic reflection: "Money,
money, money!" When she was alone her poverty was like a huge
dream-mountain on which her feet were fast rooted--aching with the ache of
the size of the thing--but if it came to definite action, with no time for
imaginings, her dream-mountain dwindled into a beastly "hold-your-nose"
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: boys!' when suddenly I felt something hard floating on
deck strike the calf of my leg. I made a grab at it and
missed. It was so dark we could not see each other's
faces within a foot--you understand.
"After that thump the ship kept quiet for a while,
and the thing, whatever it was, struck my leg again.
This time I caught it--and it was a sauce-pan. At first,
being stupid with fatigue and thinking of nothing but
the pumps, I did not understand what I had in my hand.
Suddenly it dawned upon me, and I shouted, 'Boys, the
house on deck is gone. Leave this, and let's look for the
Youth |
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 Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: flew in brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above was
neither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety--they were with God.
But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy
cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen to death on
the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her
matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. "She wanted to warm herself,"
people said. No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she
had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her grandmother
she had entered on the joys of a new year.
THE DREAM OF LITTLE TUK
Ah! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not Tuk, but that was
Fairy Tales |
