| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: in prosperity,they always turned to him in trouble. Stewart's
letter concluded:--
"I have made out a poor case for myself; but I'm in a hole, as
you can see. I would like to chuck everything here and sail for
home with these people who go in January. But, confound it,
Byrne, what am I to do with Marie? And that brings me to what I
've been wanting to say all along, and haven't had the courage
to. Marie likes you and you rather liked her, didn't you? You
could talk her into reason if anybody could. Now that you know
how things are, can't you come up over Sunday? It's asking a lot,
and I know it; but things are pretty bad."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: and the town's manners that this little episode should
have been quietly tided over, and quite a good time
elapsed before a great robbery, an escape, a Bow Street
runner, a cock-fight, an apprehension in a cupboard in
Amsterdam, and a last step into the air off his own
greatly-improved gallows drop, brought the career of
Deacon William Brodie to an end. But still, by the
mind's eye, he may be seen, a man harassed below a
mountain of duplicity, slinking from a magistrate's
supper-room to a thieves' ken, and pickeering among the
closes by the flicker of a dark lamp.
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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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: from a prayer-book worn and greasy as a long-used pack of cards.
It was particularly stained at one page, a page on which her
tears had fallen many a lonely night--a page with a clumsy wood
cut representing a celestial lamp, a symbolic radiance, shining
through darkness, and on either side a kneeling angel with folded
wings. And beneath this rudely wrought symbol of the Perpetual
Calm appeared in big, coarse type the title of a prayer that has
been offered up through many a century, doubtless, by wives of
Spanish mariners,--Contra las Tempestades.
Once she became very much frightened. After a partial lull the
storm had suddenly redoubled its force: the ground shook; the
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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 Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: I wiped the perspiration off my forehead.
"You made me good, then. I shall never give such a show again."
"Of course you will."
"Never! Never, Alice! But you- you're wonderful. Good Heavens,
lass, this might be the two hundredth night you'd played the
part. Are you some great one I've not recognized? And will you
sign a picture-postcard for our second housemaid- the one who saw
'Buzz-Buzz ' eighteen times?"
"What! Not the one with fair hair?"
"And flat feet? The very one. Junket, her name is. By Curds out
of Season. My mistake. I was thinking of our beagle. Don't
The Brother of Daphne |
