| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: the shutters and double-bar the door before they went to bed. They
usually slept in the same room. As the clock struck twelve they
were both awakened by a tremendous crash. Their door burst open
with a violence that shook the house from top to bottom.
"What's that?" cried Schwartz, starting up in his bed.
"Only I," said the little gentleman.
The two brothers sat up on their bolster and stared into the
darkness. The room was full of water, and by a misty moonbeam,
which found its way through a hole in the shutter, they could see in
the midst of it an enormous foam globe, spinning round and bobbing
up and down like a cork, on which, as on a most luxurious cushion,
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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 Death of the Lion by Henry James: craft spoke in his reference to the late editor as one of that
baser sort who deal in false representations. Mr. Deedy would as
soon have sent me to call on Neil Paraday as he would have
published a "holiday-number"; but such scruples presented
themselves as mere ignoble thrift to his successor, whose own
sincerity took the form of ringing door-bells and whose definition
of genius was the art of finding people at home. It was as if Mr.
Deedy had published reports without his young men's having, as
Pinhorn would have said, really been there. I was unregenerate, as
I have hinted, and couldn't be concerned to straighten out the
journalistic morals of my chief, feeling them indeed to be an abyss
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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 Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Tamatea his name: gullible, simple, and kind,
Comely of countenance, nimble of body, empty of mind,
His mother ruled him and loved him beyond the wont of a wife,
Serving the lad for eyes and living herself in his life.
Alone from the sea and the fishing came Tamatea the fair,
Urging his boat to the beach, and the mother awaited him there,
- "Long may you live!" said she. "Your fishing has sped to a wish.
And now let us choose for the king the fairest of all your fish.
For fear inhabits the palace and grudging grows in the land,
Marked is the sluggardly foot and marked the niggardly hand,
The hours and the miles are counted, the tributes numbered and weighed,
Ballads |
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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: so heartily, that I was almost deafened with the noise. This
liquor tasted like a small cider, and was not unpleasant. Then
the master made me a sign to come to his trencher side; but as I
walked on the table, being in great surprise all the time, as the
indulgent reader will easily conceive and excuse, I happened to
stumble against a crust, and fell flat on my face, but received
no hurt. I got up immediately, and observing the good people to
be in much concern, I took my hat (which I held under my arm out
of good manners,) and waving it over my head, made three huzzas,
to show I had got no mischief by my fall. But advancing forward
towards my master (as I shall henceforth call him,) his youngest
Gulliver's Travels |
