| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: examples of another earth, another climate, another race, and
another (if a ruder) culture. Nor did these objects lack a fitting
commentary in the conversation of my new acquaintance.
Doubtless you have read his book. You know already how he
tramped and starved, and had so fine a profit of living, in his
days among the islands; and meeting him, as I did, one artist
with another, after months of offices and picnics, you can
imagine with what charm he would speak, and with what
pleasure I would hear. It was in such talks, which we were
both eager to repeat, that I first heard the names--first fell under
the spell--of the islands; and it was from one of the first of them
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: my poor nephew."
"Well, it's all settled. I'll start to-morrow by the mail-post," said
des Grassins aloud, "and I will come and take your last directions at
--what hour will suit you?"
"Five o'clock, just before dinner," said Grandet, rubbing his hands.
The two parties stayed on for a short time. Des Grassins said, after a
pause, striking Grandet on the shoulder,--
"It is a good thing to have a relation like him."
"Yes, yes; without making a show," said Grandet, "I am a g-good
relation. I loved my brother, and I will prove it, unless it
c-c-costs--"
Eugenie Grandet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: an elephant, but stiff, because it was a pipe of iron-champed
wood. And the trunk had a steel-shod nose to it, and contained
an endless chain of steel buckets.
Then the captain swore, raising his eyes to heaven, and a gruff
voice answered him from the place he swore at, and certain
machinery, also in the firmament, began to clack, and the
glittering, steel-shod nose of that trunk burrowed into the
wheat, and the wheat quivered and sunk upon the instant as water
sinks when the siphon sucks, because the steel buckets within the
trunk were flying upon their endless round, carrying away each
its appointed morsel of wheat.
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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 The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: wagging his thin forefinger at Jeff. "The whole social fabric is
made up of lies, compromises, injustice. The only reason it has
hung together so long is that people have been trained to think
along certain lines like show animals. But they're waking up. Look
at Germany. Look at England. What the plutocrats call the menace
of Socialism is everywhere. Now that every worker knows he is
being robbed of what he earns, how long do you think he will carry
the capitalistic system on his back? From the beginning of the
world we have tried it. With what result? An injustice that is
staggering, a waste that is appalling, an inhumanity that is
deadening."
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