| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: danger, and my company only increases yours." But for me to turn
to the friend who certainly loved me, and say to him: "You are in
great danger, I am in but little; your friendship is a burden;
go, take your risks and bear your hardships alone ----" no, that
was impossible; and even to think of it privily to myself, made
my cheeks to burn.
And yet Alan had behaved like a child, and (what is worse) a
treacherous child. Wheedling my money from me while I lay
half-conscious was scarce better than theft; and yet here he was
trudging by my side, without a penny to his name, and by what I
could see, quite blithe to sponge upon the money he had driven me
Kidnapped |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: When thou shalt be beyond the waters wide,
Tell my Giovanna that she pray for me,
Where answer to the innocent is made.
I do not think her mother loves me more,
Since she has laid aside her wimple white,
Which she, unhappy, needs must wish again.
Through her full easily is comprehended
How long in woman lasts the fire of love,
If eye or touch do not relight it often.
So fair a hatchment will not make for her
The Viper marshalling the Milanese
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all
demands.
CLOWN.
But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should
speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me
if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.
COUNTESS.
To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question,
hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a
courtier?
CLOWN.
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: more what he had from the first wished it to be - as dazzling as
the vision of heaven in the mind of a child. He wandered in the
fields of light; he passed, among the tall tapers, from tier to
tier, from fire to fire, from name to name, from the white
intensity of one clear emblem, of one saved soul, to another. It
was in the quiet sense of having saved his souls that his deep
strange instinct rejoiced. This was no dim theological rescue, no
boon of a contingent world; they were saved better than faith or
works could save them, saved for the warm world they had shrunk
from dying to, for actuality, for continuity, for the certainty of
human remembrance.
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