| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse,
which soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement.
One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house,
the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest
when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room
for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two
before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have
overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last
and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it
may plow out again through the side of his head. Also, our
sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: approaching death.
The murderer had locked himself up in an
empty hut at the end of the village; and thither
we went. A number of women, all of them
weeping, were running in the same direction; at
times a belated Cossack, hastily buckling on his
dagger, sprang out into the street and overtook
us at a run. The tumult was dreadful.
At length we arrived on the scene and found a
crowd standing around the hut, the door and
shutters of which were locked on the inside.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: left proofs and traces of its passage. Next day the servant
found the fine gold spectacles broken on the threshold, and
that very night we were all standing breathless by the bar-
room window, and Fettes at our side, sober, pale, and
resolute in look.
'God protect us, Mr. Fettes!' said the landlord, coming first
into possession of his customary senses. 'What in the
universe is all this? These are strange things you have been
saying.'
Fettes turned toward us; he looked us each in succession in
the face. 'See if you can hold your tongues,' said he.
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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 Little Britain by Washington Irving: man of no little standing and importance; and his renown
extends through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even unto
Aldermanbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs of
state, having read the Sunday papers for the last half century,
together with the "Gentleman's Magazine," Rapin's "History of
England," and the "Naval Chronicle." His head is stored with
invaluable maxims which have borne the test of time and use
for centuries. It is his firm opinion that "it is a moral
impossible," so long as England is true to herself, that anything
can shake her; and he has much to say on the subject of the
national debt, which, somehow or other, he proves to be a
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