| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: disgusting, or destructive disposition that may become at times
overwhelming, and you have our universal trouble with sinful
tendency, as it were magnified for examination. It is clear that
the mania which defines his position must be the primary if not the
cardinal business in the life of a lunatic, but his problem with
that is different not in kind but merely in degree from the problem
of lusts, vanities, and weaknesses in what we call normal lives. It
is an unconquered tract, a great rebel province in his being, which
refuses to serve God and tries to prevent him serving God, and
succeeds at times in wresting his capital out of his control. But
his relationship to that is the same relationship as ours to the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: Another minute, thought I, and he would have had me locked in,
and as ready as a hospital rabbit for my fate. He emerged behind
the corner, for I heard him shout, "Prendick!" Then he began to run
after me, shouting things as he ran. This time running blindly,
I went northeastward in a direction at right angles to my
previous expedition. Once, as I went running headlong up the beach,
I glanced over my shoulder and saw his attendant with him.
I ran furiously up the slope, over it, then turning eastward along
a rocky valley fringed on either side with jungle I ran for perhaps
a mile altogether, my chest straining, my heart beating in my ears;
and then hearing nothing of Montgomery or his man, and feeling
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Let him imagine, who would well conceive
What now I saw, and let him while I speak
Retain the image as a steadfast rock,
The fifteen stars, that in their divers regions
The sky enliven with a light so great
That it transcends all clusters of the air;
Let him the Wain imagine unto which
Our vault of heaven sufficeth night and day,
So that in turning of its pole it fails not;
Let him the mouth imagine of the horn
That in the point beginneth of the axis
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
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 Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: law. . . . And there you are!"
Schmucke, hearing such talk for the first time in his life, was
completely bewildered by it; his head sank down upon the back of his
chair--he could not support it, it had grown so heavy.
Villemot meanwhile went off to chat with the justice of the peace and
his clerk, assisting with professional coolness to affix the seals--a
ceremony which always involves some buffoonery and plentiful comments
on the objects thus secured, unless, indeed, one of the family happens
to be present. At length the party sealed up the chamber and returned
to the dining-room, whither the clerk betook himself. Schmucke watched
the mechanical operation which consists in setting the justice's seal
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