| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: very gravely that I thought one would do this time, and I picked
it and gave it to him. Bruno ran his hand once or twice up and down
the flowers, like a musician trying an instrument, producing a most
delicious delicate tinkling as he did so. I had never heard
flower-music before--I don't think one can, unless one's in the 'eerie'
state and I don't know quite how to give you an idea of what it was
like, except by saying that it sounded like a peal of bells a thousand
miles off. When he had satisfied himself that the flowers were in
tune, he seated himself on the dead mouse (he never seemed really
comfortable anywhere else), and, looking up at me with a merry twinkle
in his eyes, he began. By the way, the tune was rather a curious one,
Sylvie and Bruno |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: names, and see whether, as in the case of letters, there are any classes to
which they may be all referred (cf. Phaedrus); and hence we shall see their
natures, and see, too, whether they have in them classes as there are in
the letters; and when we have well considered all this, we shall know how
to apply them to what they resemble--whether one letter is used to denote
one thing, or whether there is to be an admixture of several of them; just,
as in painting, the painter who wants to depict anything sometimes uses
purple only, or any other colour, and sometimes mixes up several colours,
as his method is when he has to paint flesh colour or anything of that
kind--he uses his colours as his figures appear to require them; and so,
too, we shall apply letters to the expression of objects, either single
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: people. If I thought he liked me I would drown myself rather than
go back with him."
For of course he had come to take "Florrie" home. The scene was the
dining-room--breakfast interrupted, dishes growing cold, little
Fyne's toast growing leathery, Fyne out of his chair with his back
to the fire, the newspaper on the carpet, servants shut out, Mrs.
Fyne rigid in her place with the girl sitting beside her--the
"odious person," who had bustled in with hardly a greeting, looking
from Fyne to Mrs. Fyne as though he were inwardly amused at
something he knew of them; and then beginning ironically his
discourse. He did not apologize for disturbing Fyne and his "good
Chance |
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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: Congeals upon each little spire of grass,
Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass:
And gold ne'er here appears,
Save what the yellow Ceres bears,
Blest silent groves, oh may ye be,
For ever, mirth's best nursery !
May pure contents
For ever pitch their tents
Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains.
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains:
Which we may, every year,
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