| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: begged to be allowed to learn the piano, she started him with
characteristic barbarity on the scales; and heard in consequence
'heart-rending groans' and saw 'anguished claspings of hands' as he
lost his way among their arid intricacies.
In this picture of the lad at the piano, there is something, for
the period, girlish. He was indeed his mother's boy; and it was
fortunate his mother was not altogether feminine. She gave her son
a womanly delicacy in morals, to a man's taste - to his own taste
in later life - too finely spun, and perhaps more elegant than
healthful. She encouraged him besides in drawing-room interests.
But in other points her influence was manlike. Filled with the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: think of my <10> salad days, forty in number, and of the blessedness
of being alone as I was then alone!
And then the evenings, when the workmen had all gone and the house
was left to emptiness and echoes, and the old housekeeper had gathered
up her rheumatic limbs into her bed, and my little room in quite another
part of the house had been set ready, how reluctantly I used to leave
the friendly frogs and owls, and with my heart somewhere down in my shoes
lock the door to the garden behind me, and pass through the long series
of echoing south rooms full of shadows and ladders and ghostly pails
of painters' mess, and humming a tune to make myself believe I liked it,
go rather slowly across the brick-floored hall, up the creaking stairs,
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: We pardon it; and for your ingress here
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land,
you did but come as goblins in the night,
Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head,
Nor burnt the grange, nor bussed the milking-maid,
Nor robbed the farmer of his bowl of cream:
But let your Prince (our royal word upon it,
He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines,
And speak with Arac: Arac's word is thrice
As ours with Ida: something may be done--
I know not what--and ours shall see us friends.
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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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: vacated. Must go there at once.'"
"Mr. Harton," I said testily, "I am not going to do anything of
the kind. I and mine have suffered enough at the hands of this
family. I rented the house at an exorbitant figure and I have
moved out here for the summer. My city home is dismantled and in
the hands of decorators. I have been here one week, during which
I have had not a single night of uninterrupted sleep, and I
intend to stay until I have recuperated. Moreover, if Mr.
Armstrong died insolvent, as I believe was the case, his widow
ought to be glad to be rid of so expensive a piece of property."
The lawyer cleared his throat.
The Circular Staircase |
