| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: bells, and frantic waving of handkerchiefs. Fanny, at the
rail, found her two among the crowd, and smiled down upon
them, mistily. Ella was waving energetically. Heyl was
standing quite still, looking up. The ship swung clear,
crept away from the dock. The good-bys swelled to a roar.
Fanny leaned far over the rail and waved too, a sob in her
throat. Then she saw that she was waving with the hand that
held the yellow telegram. She crumpled it in the other
hand, and substituted her handkerchief. Heyl still stood,
hat in hand, motionless.
"Why don't you wave good-by?" she called, though he could
Fanny Herself |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: ecstasy, clairvoyance, insensibility to pain, cures produced by the
effect of what we now call mesmerism. They are all there, these modern
puzzles, in those old books of the long bygone seekers for wisdom. It
makes us love them, while it saddens us to see that their difficulties
were the same as ours, and that there is nothing new under the sun. Of
course, a great deal of it all was "imagination." But the question
then, as now is, what is this wonder-working imagination?--unless the
word be used as a mere euphemism for lying, which really, in many cases,
is hardly fair. We cannot wonder at the old Neoplatonists for
attributing these strange phenomena to spiritual influence, when we see
some who ought to know better doing the same thing now; and others, who
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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 Confessio Amantis by John Gower: Whan he his oghne wit bejapeth,
I can the wommen wel excuse:
Bot what man wole upon hem muse 4270
After the fool impression
Of his ymaginacioun,
Withinne himself the fyr he bloweth,
Wherof the womman nothing knoweth,
So mai sche nothing be to wyte.
For if a man himself excite
To drenche, and wol it noght forbere,
The water schal no blame bere.
Confessio Amantis |
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 Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: who has battled all his life against academic
prejudice, or to the artist who has endured years of
ridicule for not painting in the manner of his
predecessors; but it is not by the remote hope of such
pleasures that their work has been inspired. All
the most important work springs from an uncalculating
impulse, and is best promoted, not by rewards
after the event, but by circumstances which keep the
impulse alive and afford scope for the activities
which it inspires. In the creation of such circumstances
our present system is much at fault. Will
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