| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: about love and a BEL AMOUREUX, her handsome sweetheart; and I
wished I could have taken up the strain and answered her, as I went
on upon my invisible woodland way, weaving, like Pippa in the poem,
my own thoughts with hers. What could I have told her? Little
enough; and yet all the heart requires. How the world gives and
takes away, and brings sweethearts near only to separate them again
into distant and strange lands; but to love is the great amulet
which makes the world a garden; and 'hope, which comes to all,'
outwears the accidents of life, and reaches with tremulous hand
beyond the grave and death. Easy to say: yea, but also, by God's
mercy, both easy and grateful to believe!
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Greg. To moue, is to stir: and to be valiant, is to stand:
Therefore, if thou art mou'd, thou runst away
Samp. A dogge of that house shall moue me to stand.
I will take the wall of any Man or Maid of Mountagues
Greg. That shewes thee a weake slaue, for the weakest
goes to the wall
Samp. True, and therefore women being the weaker
Vessels, are euer thrust to the wall: therefore I will push
Mountagues men from the wall, and thrust his Maides to
the wall
Greg. The Quarrell is betweene our Masters, and vs their men
Romeo and Juliet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!
That is ship;--plain as it can be.--Now for the cream.
But ah! united, (courtship, you know,) what reverse we have!
Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown.
Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,
And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.
A very proper compliment!--and then follows the application,
which I think, my dear Harriet, you cannot find much difficulty
in comprehending. Read it in comfort to yourself. There can
be no doubt of its being written for you and to you."
Harriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion.
Emma |
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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: `You show them you have in you something that is really profitable,
and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability,'
he would say. `Of course you must take care of the motives--
right motives--always.' The long reaches that were like one
and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike,
slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees
looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world,
the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres,
of blessings. I looked ahead--piloting. `Close the shutter,'
said Kurtz suddenly one day; `I can't bear to look at this.'
I did so. There was a silence. `Oh, but I will wring your
Heart of Darkness |
