| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: 'For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy 649
Doth call himself Affection's sentinel;
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,
And in a peaceful hour doth cry "Kill, kill!" 652
Distempering gentle Love in his desire,
As air and water do abate the fire.
'This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,
This canker that eats up Love's tender spring, 656
This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: ought to be rewritten,--all that has been printed, too,--scrapped
and melted down, thrown away, renounced. I ought to say, 'I am
sorry; I will not do it any more,' and try to write something
fresh instead of all this incoherent, neither-fish-nor-flesh-
nor-fowlish stuff."
That was how my father felt toward his novel while he was
writing it. Afterward I often heard him say much harsher things
about it.
"What difficulty is there in writing about how an officer
fell in love with a married woman?" he used to say. "There's no
difficulty in it, and above all no good in it."
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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 The Human Drift by Jack London: LORETTA. [Puzzled.] All?
NED. [Awkwardly.] I mean . . . er . . . nothing worse?
LORETTA. [Puzzled.] Worse? As though there could be. Billy
said -
NED. [Interrupting.] When?
LORETTA. This afternoon. Just now. Billy said that my . . . our
. . . our . . . our kisses were terrible if we didn't get married.
NED. What else did he say?
LORETTA. He said that when a woman permitted a man to kiss her
she always married him. That it was awful if she didn't. It was
the custom, he said; and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and it
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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 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: `Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went
through thee; _I_ will make thee an eternal excellence, a joy of
many generations!'
"You will call me an enthusiast: you will tell me that I have
not well considered what I am undertaking. But I have
considered, and counted the cost. I go to _Liberia_, not as an
Elysium of romance, but as to _a field of work_. I expect to work
with both hands,--to work _hard_; to work against all sorts of
difficulties and discouragements; and to work till I die. This is
what I go for; and in this I am quite sure I shall not be disappointed.
"Whatever you may think of my determination, do not divorce
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
