| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: 'He'll be a famous soldier,' said Cambremer, 'he's got the taste of
blood.' Now, you see," said the fisherman, "I can look back and
remember all that--and Cambremer, too," he added, after a pause. "By
the time Jacques Cambremer was fifteen or sixteen years of age he had
come to be--what shall I say?--a shark. He amused himself at Guerande,
and was after the girls at Savenay. Then he wanted money. He robbed
his mother, who didn't dare say a word to his father. Cambremer was an
honest man who'd have tramped fifty miles to return two sous that any
one had overpaid him on a bill. At last, one day the mother was robbed
of everything. During one of his father's fishing-trips Jacques
carried off all she had, furniture, pots and pans, sheets, linen,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: influence in the general tone and phraseology of the Dialogue (compare opos
melesei tis...kaka: oti pas aphron mainetai): and the writer seems to
have been acquainted with the 'Laws' of Plato (compare Laws). An incident
from the Symposium is rather clumsily introduced, and two somewhat
hackneyed quotations (Symp., Gorg.) recur. The reference to the death of
Archelaus as having occurred 'quite lately' is only a fiction, probably
suggested by the Gorgias, where the story of Archelaus is told, and a
similar phrase occurs;--ta gar echthes kai proen gegonota tauta, k.t.l.
There are several passages which are either corrupt or extremely ill-
expressed. But there is a modern interest in the subject of the dialogue;
and it is a good example of a short spurious work, which may be attributed
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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 Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: by Sister Helen Vincula, that she was looking right down into the
heart of a violet as great, as wide--as great, as wide--as the whole
world.
But this did not seem so strange to Bessie Bell, for she yet
remembered that window out of which one could see just small, green,
moving things, and of which great grown people had told her, ``No,
Bessie Bell, there is no such window in all the world.''
So in her own way she thought that maybe after awhile that the big,
big violet might drift away, away, and great grown people might say,
``No, Bessie Bell, there never was a violet in all the world like
that.''
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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 The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In
another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the same
cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.
Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his
heart and mind. His words had power, because they accorded with
his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because
they harmonized with the life which he had always lived. It was
not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words
of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted
into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into this
precious draught. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being
The Snow Image |
