| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: mere continuance of years, he must impose; the man who helped to
rule England before I was conceived, strikes me with a new sense of
greatness and antiquity, when I must actually beard him with the
cold forms of correspondence. I shied at the necessity of calling
him plain 'Sir'! Had he been 'My lord,' I had been happier; no, I
am no equalitarian. Honour to whom honour is due; and if to none,
why, then, honour to the old!
These, O Slade Professor, are my unvarnished sentiments: I was a
little surprised to find them so extreme, and therefore I
communicate the fact.
Belabour thy brains, as to whom it would be well to question. I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: of ten thousand pounds which must be hers hereafter.
Sir Walter, indeed, though he had no affection for Anne,
and no vanity flattered, to make him really happy on the occasion,
was very far from thinking it a bad match for her. On the contrary,
when he saw more of Captain Wentworth, saw him repeatedly by daylight,
and eyed him well, he was very much struck by his personal claims,
and felt that his superiority of appearance might be not unfairly balanced
against her superiority of rank; and all this, assisted by
his well-sounding name, enabled Sir Walter at last to prepare his pen,
with a very good grace, for the insertion of the marriage
in the volume of honour.
Persuasion |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: sufferings of others as though they were his own. Souls that resemble
that noble soul espouse so ardently the impressions, miseries,
passions, sufferings of those in whom they are interested, that they
actually feel them, and in a horrible manner, too; for they are able
to measure their extent,--a knowledge which escapes others who are
blinded by selfishness of heart or the paroxysm of grief. It is here
that a priest like Monsieur Bonnet becomes an artist who feels, rather
than an artist who judges.
When the rector entered the bishop's salon and found there the two
grand-vicars, the Abbe de Rastignac, Monsieur de Grandville, and the
/procureur-general/, he felt convinced that something more was
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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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: inorganic creation as we know night and sleep are to the organic
kingdom." Not even does the moon shine every night, but gives
place to darkness.
I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated,
any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part
will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest,
not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against
a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it
supports.
There are other letters for the child to learn than those which
Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this
Walking |
