| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: how not to write.
By the by, you sent me long ago a work by Anatole France, which I
confess I did not TASTE. Since then I have made the acquaintance
of the ABBE COIGNARD, and have become a faithful adorer. I don't
think a better book was ever written.
And I have no idea what I have said, and I have no idea what I
ought to have said, and I am a total ass, but my heart is in the
right place, and I am, my dear Henry James, yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MR. MARCEL SCHWOB
VAILIMA, UPOLU, SAMOA, JULY 7, 1894.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: listen to the tail of my peroration:
"'So, as we go mooching along the drag, with a sharp lamp out for John Law, we
cannot help remembering that we are beyond the pale; that our ways are not
their ways; and that the ways of John Law with us are different from his ways
with other men. Poor lost souls, wailing for a crust in the dark, we know full
well our helplessness and ignominy. And well may we repeat after a stricken
brother over-seas: "Our pride it is to know no spur of pride." Man has
forgotten us; God has forgotten us; only are we remembered by the harpies of
justice, who prey upon our distress and coin our sighs and tears into bright
shining dollars.'
"Incidentally, my picture of Sol Glenhart, the police judge, was good. A
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: man. She laced their journeys with a fantastic monologue telling in
the third person what the Leopard and the Cheetah were thinking and
seeing and doing. And so they walked up mountains and over passes
and swam in the warm clear water of romantic lakes and loved each
other mightily always, in chestnut woods and olive orchards and
flower-starred alps and pine forests and awning-covered boats, and
by sunset and moonlight and starshine; and out of these agreeable
solitudes they came brown and dusty, striding side by side into
sunlit entertaining fruit-piled market-places and envious hotels.
For days and weeks together it did not seem to Benham that there was
anything that mattered in life but Amanda and the elemental joys of
|
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 Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: `Well, "OUTGRABING" is something between bellowing and
whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll
hear it done, maybe--down in the wood yonder--and when you've
once heard it you'll be QUITE content. Who's been repeating all
that hard stuff to you?'
`I read it in a book,' said Alice. `But I had some poetry
repeated to me, much easier than that, by--Tweedledee, I think
it was.'
`As to poetry, you know,' said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out
one of his great hands, `_I_ can repeat poetry as well as other
folk, if it comes to that--'
Through the Looking-Glass |
