| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: guardian to a small nephew and a small niece, children of a younger,
a military brother, whom he had lost two years before.
These children were, by the strangest of chances for a man
in his position--a lone man without the right sort of
experience or a grain of patience--very heavily on his hands.
It had all been a great worry and, on his own part doubtless,
a series of blunders, but he immensely pitied the poor chicks
and had done all he could; had in particular sent them
down to his other house, the proper place for them being
of course the country, and kept them there, from the first,
with the best people he could find to look after them,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: such strength in my heart to love, such constancy sustained by
reason, such heroism for the duties for which I was created,--if
indeed love can ever be transmuted into duty.
If you were able to follow me to the exquisite retreat where I
fancy ourselves happy, if you knew my plans and projects, the
dreadful word "folly!" might escape you, and I should be cruelly
punished for sending poetry to a poet. Yes, I wish to be a spring
of waters inexhaustible as a fertile land for the twenty years
that nature allows me to shine. I want to drive away satiety by
charm. I mean to be courageous for my friend as most women are for
the world. I wish to vary happiness. I wish to put intelligence
Modeste Mignon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: glass, and the walls of the hall were ornamented by pictures in pairs,
each pair showing identically the same scenes. This, was, of course,
reasonable enough in such a land, where two people would always look
at two pictures at the same time and admire them in the same way with
the same thoughts.
Beneath one of the domes stood a double throne, on which sat the Ki of
Twi--a pair of gray-bearded and bald-headed men who were lean and lank
and stoop-shouldered. They had small eyes, black and flashing, long
hooked noses, great pointed ears, and they were smoking two pipes from
which the smoke curled in exactly the same circles and clouds.
Beneath the other dome sat the Ki-Ki of Twi, also on double thrones,
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
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 Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: duchess, who had complained to the king and to her father, and
had, moreover, set a watch upon the movements of his royal
highness. But such measures did not avail to make him a faithful
husband, and no sooner was Lady Chesterfield removed from his
sight, than Lady Denham took her place in his affections. This
latter mentioned gentlewoman was daughter of a valiant baronet,
Sir William Brooke, and niece to a worthless peer, the Earl of
Bristol. The earl had, on the king's restoration, cherished
ambitious schemes to obtain the merry monarch's favour; for which
purpose he sought to commend himself by ministering to the royal
pleasures.
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