| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: undergrowth of the forest. The handkerchief had been the bandage
of a wound upon Reuben's arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he
vowed by the blood that stained it that he would return, either
to save his companion's life or to lay his body in the grave. He
then descended, and stood, with downcast eyes, to receive Roger
Malvin's parting words.
The experience of the latter suggested much and minute advice
respecting the youth's journey through the trackless forest. Upon
this subject he spoke with calm earnestness, as if he were
sending Reuben to the battle or the chase while he himself
remained secure at home, and not as if the human countenance that
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: by exhibiting examples of personal conduct made intelligible and
moving to crowds of unobservant, unreflecting people to whom real
life means nothing. I have pointed out again and again that the
influence of the theatre in England is growing so great that
whilst private conduct, religion, law, science, politics, and
morals are becoming more and more theatrical, the theatre itself
remains impervious to common sense, religion, science, politics,
and morals. That is why I fight the theatre, not with pamphlets
and sermons and treatises, but with plays; and so effective do I
find the dramatic method that I have no doubt I shall at last
persuade even London to take its conscience and its brains with
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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 Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: whose account should he embrace that method of life? Suppose
however that he does, there will then be nothing to hinder his
marrying and rearing offspring. For his wife will be even such
another as himself, and likewise her father; and in like manner
will his children be brought up.
But in the present condition of things, which resembles an
Army in battle array, ought not the Cynic to be free from all
distraction and given wholly to the service of God, so that he
can go in and out among men, neither fettered by the duties nor
entangled by the relations of common life? For if he transgress
them, he will forfeit the character of a good man and true;
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: silent minute or two. Then picking up the thread of his story he
told us how he had started hot foot for Tower Hill. He had not been
that way since the day of his examination--the finest day of his
life--the day of his overweening pride. It was very different now.
He would not have called the Queen his cousin, still, but this time
it was from a sense of profound abasement. He didn't think himself
good enough for anybody's kinship. He envied the purple-nosed old
cab-drivers on the stand, the boot-black boys at the edge of the
pavement, the two large bobbies pacing slowly along the Tower
Gardens railings in the consciousness of their infallible might, and
the bright scarlet sentries walking smartly to and fro before the
Chance |
