| 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: faithful. If you want to cease to be a republican, see my little
Kaiulani, as she goes through - but she is gone already. You will
die a red, I wear the colours of that little royal maiden, NOUS
ALLONS CHANTER A LA RONDE, SI VOUS VOULEZ! only she is not blonde
by several chalks, though she is but a half-blood, and the wrong
half Edinburgh Scots like mysel'. But, O Low, I love the
Polynesian: this civilisation of ours is a dingy, ungentlemanly
business; it drops out too much of man, and too much of that the
very beauty of the poor beast: who has his beauties in spite of
Zola and Co. As usual, here is a whole letter with no news: I am
a bloodless, inhuman dog; and no doubt Zola is a better
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Holds high the mystic sacrifice,
And shows his God to human eyes
Beneath the veil of bread and wine.
IV.
For lo, what changes time can bring!
The cycles of revolving years
May free my heart from all its fears,
And teach my lips a song to sing.
Before yon field of trembling gold
Is garnered into dusty sheaves,
Or ere the autumn's scarlet leaves
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: aside a dowry for my sister. My father is the most honourable man
in the world. When my mother died, she left six thousand francs a
year, which he divided between my sister and myself on the very
day when he received his appointment; then, when I was
twenty-one, he added to this little income an annual allowance of
five thousand francs, assuring me that with eight thousand francs
a year I might live very happily at Paris, if, in addition to
this, I would make a position for myself either in law or
medicine. I came to Paris, studied law, was called to the bar,
and, like many other young men, put my diploma in my pocket, and
let myself drift, as one so easily does in Paris.
Camille |
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 Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: difficult to realize that the scenes of the preceding ten months
have not been hideous phantasmagoria or a long, troubled dream.
On Christmas eve, the Council in Calcutta wrote home to the Court
of Directors that the scarcity had entirely ceased, and,
incredible as it may seem, that unusual plenty had returned.....
So generous had been the harvest that the government proposed at
once to lay in its military stores for the ensuing year, and
expected to obtain them at a very cheap rate."
Such sudden transitions from the depths of misery to the most
exuberant plenty are by no means rare in the history of Asia,
where the various centres of civilization are, in an economical
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
