| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis: secret passageway leading out of her hold!"
"She IS a remarkable vessel," agreed Wilton Barnstable gravely.
"But, come, we are wasting time! The other end of this passage
is at Morris's, that is plain. Loge Black has only a few
minutes' start of us. Therefore, to Morris's!"
CHAPTER XXVI
A DOG DIES GAME
Clambering out of the hold, the three detectives and Cleggett
briefly made their followers acquainted with the extraordinary
turn of events. The Rev. Mr. Calthrop, Miss Pringle's Jefferson,
and Washington Artillery Lamb were detailed to guard the Jasper
|
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: as their patron. Pure devotion, such as Modeste conceived it, without
money and without price, and more especially without hope, is rare.
Nevertheless there are Mennevals to be found, more perhaps in Paris
than elsewhere, men who value a life in the background with its
peaceful toil; these are the wandering Benedictines of our social
world, which offers them no other monastery. These brave, meek hearts
live, by their actions and in their hidden lives, the poetry that
poets utter. They are poets themselves in soul, in tenderness, in
their lonely vigils and meditations,--as truly poets as others of the
name on paper, who fatten in the fields of literature at so much a
verse; like Lord Byron, like all who live, alas, by ink, the
Modeste Mignon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: disobedient to chastise him. This principle, though capable of being
stated in a few words, is one which holds good throughout the whole of
horsemanship. As, for instance, a horse will more readily take the
bit, if each time he accepts it some good befalls him; or, again, he
will leap ditches and spring up embankments and perform all the other
feats incumbent on him, if he be led to associate obedience to the
word of command with relaxation.[13]
[13] Lit. "if every time he performs the word of command he is led to
expect some relaxation."
IX
The topics hitherto considered have been: firstly, how to reduce the
On Horsemanship |
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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: sometimes upright, sometimes half-sunken beneath the rocks. It may be
that such minds alone can dwell upon the smiling scenes nestling among
the lower hills of Jarvis; where the luscious Northern vegetables
spring up in families, in myriads, where the white birches bend,
graceful as maidens, where colonnades of beeches rear their boles
mossy with the growth of centuries, where shades of green contrast,
and white clouds float amid the blackness of the distant pines, and
tracts of many-tinted crimson and purple shrubs are shaded endlessly;
in short, where blend all colors, all perfumes of a flora whose
wonders are still ignored. Widen the boundaries of this limited
ampitheatre, spring upward to the clouds, lose yourself among the
Seraphita |
