| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: by his lodger, and lived for him. He was a fine talker. He
knew the finest sight of stories; he was a man and a
gentleman, take him for all in all, and a perfect credit to
Old England. Such were the old man's declared sentiments,
and sure enough he clung to Mr. Archer's side, hung upon his
utterance when he spoke, and watched him with unwearing
interest when he was silent. And yet his feeling was not
clear; in the partial wreck of his mind, which was leaning to
decay, some after-thought was strongly present. As he gazed
in Mr. Archer's face a sudden brightness would kindle in his
rheumy eyes, his eye-brows would lift as with a sudden
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: out how much you did, work or pleasure, in good faith and
soberness, and for how much you had to cheat yourself with
some invention? I remember, as though it were yesterday, the
expansion of spirit, the dignity and self-reliance, that came
with a pair of mustachios in burnt cork, even when there was
none to see. Children are even content to forego what we call
the realities, and prefer the shadow to the substance. When
they might be speaking intelligibly together, they chatter
senseless gibberish by the hour, and are quite happy because
they are making believe to speak French. I have said already
how even the imperious appetite of hunger suffers itself to be
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: long strip of looking-glass in the door of his wife's wardrobe.
Then after slipping his braces off his shoulders he pulled up
violently the venetian blind, and leaned his forehead against the
cold window-pane - a fragile film of glass stretched between him
and the enormity of cold, black, wet, muddy, inhospitable
accumulation of bricks, slates, and stones, things in themselves
unlovely and unfriendly to man.
Mr Verloc felt the latent unfriendliness of all out of doors with a
force approaching to positive bodily anguish. There is no
occupation that fails a man more completely than that of a secret
agent of police. It's like your horse suddenly falling dead under
The Secret Agent |
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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: paddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says "poppa"
and "momma." It is certainly a new species. This resemblance to
words may be purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose
or meaning; but even in that case it is still extraordinary, and
is a thing which no other bear can do. This imitation of speech,
taken together with general absence of fur and entire absence of
tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind of bear. The
further study of it will be exceedingly interesting. Meantime I
will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the North and
make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another one
somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has company
|
