| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: exhausting her limited patience. We excused her, to a certain
extent, on the plea of ill-health: she was dwindling and fading
before our eyes. But one day, when she had been peculiarly
wayward, rejecting her breakfast, complaining that the servants did
not do what she told them; that the mistress would allow her to be
nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected her; that she had caught
a cold with the doors being left open, and we let the parlour fire
go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet more frivolous
accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she should get
to bed; and, having scolded her heartily, threatened to send for
the doctor. Mention of Kenneth caused her to exclaim, instantly,
Wuthering Heights |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: tells it, inevitably and irresistibly displaces all the vulgar, mean,
purblind, spiteful versions. There is a precise realism and an
unsmiling, measured, determined sincerity which gives a strange
dignity to the work of one whose fixed practice and ungovernable
impulse it is to kick conventional dignity whenever he sees it.
Harris "durch Mitleid wissend"
Frank Harris is everything except a humorist, not, apparently, from
stupidity, but because scorn overcomes humor in him. Nobody ever
dreamt of reproaching Milton's Lucifer for not seeing the comic side
of his fall; and nobody who has read Mr Harris's stories desires to
have them lightened by chapters from the hand of Artemus Ward. Yet he
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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 The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: he had done. "It is curious," he remarked, "but I feel quite warm
now, although it is so cold."
"That is because you have done a good action," said the Prince.
And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep.
Thinking always made him sleepy.
When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. "What a
remarkable phenomenon," said the Professor of Ornithology as he was
passing over the bridge. "A swallow in winter!" And he wrote a
long letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it,
it was full of so many words that they could not understand.
"To-night I go to Egypt," said the Swallow, and he was in high
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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 Rig Veda: With his Companions, not without his Brother, he quells Saptatha's
magic devices.
3 On most auspicious path he goes to battle he toiled to win
heaven's
light, full fain to gain it;
He seized the hundred-gated castle's treasure by craft, unchecked,
and
slew the lustful demons.
4 Fighting for kine, the prize of war, and I roaming among
the berd be
brings the young streams hither,
The Rig Veda |
