| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence
conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate
passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much
that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to
heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken.
While the objects around me--while the carvings of the ceilings,
the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the
floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as
I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had
been accustomed from my infancy--while I hesitated not to
acknowledge how familiar was all this--I still wondered to find
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: Here Mr. Weston joined them, and on hearing what was proposed,
gave it his decided approbation.
"Aye, do, Frank.--Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter
at once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure; and I do not know
a properer person for shewing us how to do away difficulties.
Fetch Miss Bates. We are growing a little too nice. She is
a standing lesson of how to be happy. But fetch them both.
Invite them both."
"Both sir! Can the old lady?" . . .
"The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you
a great blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece."
Emma |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: thing at once so essential and so immaterial. It is something
that calls upon such men as I with an irresistible appeal.
I have figured it in my last section by the symbol of my
destroyer, stark and swift, irrelevant to most human interests.
Sometimes I call this reality Science, sometimes I call it
Truth. But it is something we draw by pain and effort ont of the
heart of life, that we disentangle and make clear. Other men
serve it, I know, in art, in literature, in social invention, and
see it in a thousand different figures, under a hundred names. I
see it always as austerity, as beauty. This thing we make clear
is the heart of life. It is the one enduring thing. Men and
|
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 Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.
63. Cf. INFERNO, iii. 55-7.
si lunga tratta
di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.
64. Cf. INFERNO, iv. 25-7:
Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,
non avea pianto, ma' che di sospiri,
che l'aura eterna facevan tremare.
68. A phenomenon which I have often noticed.
74. Cf. the Dirge in Webster's _White Devil_ . 76.
The Waste Land |
