| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: tiles, and a couple of coloured supplements fluttering from the
walls above the kitchen range.
As the dawn grew clearer, we saw through the gap in the
wall the body of a Martian, standing sentinel, I suppose, over
the still glowing cylinder. At the sight of that we crawled as
circumspectly as possible out of the twilight of the kitchen
into the darkness of the scullery.
Abruptly the right interpretation dawned upon my mind.
"The fifth cylinder," I whispered, "the fifth shot from
Mars, has struck this house and buried us under the ruins!"
For a time the curate was silent, and then he whispered:
War of the Worlds |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: had passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it is not to be
supposed I had been absent from her pillow thoughts. Upon the back of
this, to be awaked, with unaccustomed formality, under the name of Miss
Drummond, and to be thenceforth used with a great deal of distance and
respect, led her entirely in error on my private sentiments; and she
was indeed so incredibly abused as to imagine me repentant and trying
to draw off!
The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this: that whereas I (since
I had first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of James More,
his return and suspicions, she made so little of these that I may say
she scarce remarked them, and all her troubles and doings regarded what
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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 Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: an icy eddy of a brook, and leaning with one hand on the rock from
which it poured. The spray had wet her hair. She saw the white
cascade, the stars wavering in the shaken pool, foam flitting, and
high overhead the tall pines on either hand serenely drinking
starshine; and in the sudden quiet of her spirit she heard with joy
the firm plunge of the cataract in the pool. She scrambled forth
dripping. In the face of her proved weakness, to adventure again
upon the horror of blackness in the groves were a suicide of life or
reason. But here, in the alley of the brook, with the kind stars
above her, and the moon presently swimming into sight, she could
await the coming of day without alarm.
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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 Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: there may be less difficulty in understanding what I am about to say on
this subject, I advise those who are not versed in anatomy, before they
commence the perusal of these observations, to take the trouble of getting
dissected in their presence the heart of some large animal possessed of
lungs (for this is throughout sufficiently like the human), and to have
shown to them its two ventricles or cavities: in the first place, that in
the right side, with which correspond two very ample tubes, viz., the
hollow vein (vena cava), which is the principal receptacle of the blood,
and the trunk of the tree, as it were, of which all the other veins in the
body are branches; and the arterial vein (vena arteriosa), inappropriately
so denominated, since it is in truth only an artery, which, taking its
Reason Discourse |
