| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: away from that little camp, particularly as we have not had so much as a taste
of the delicious wax they've been making.
CHAPTER III. A SET OF SETTERS
It was a great bird-year at Oakdene. Never had there been so many. The same
dear old Phoebe-birds were back, building under the eaves of both the front
and back piazzas. The robins, as usual, were everywhere. The Maryland
yellow-throats were nesting in great numbers in the young growth of woods on
the hill of the ravine, and ringing out their hammer-like note in the merriest
manner; a note that no one understood until Dr. Van Dyke told us, in his
beautiful little poem, that it is "witchery, witchery, witchery," and now we
wonder that we could have been so stupid as not to have discovered it was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;
Ne'er settled equally, but high or low;
That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.
'It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud, 1141
Bud and be blastod in a breathing-while;
The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile: 1144
The strongest body shall it make most weak,
Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak.
'It shall be sparing and too full of riot,
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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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: And with his strong course opens them again. 960
O! how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow;
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry; 964
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.
Variable passions throng her constant woe,
As striving who should best become her grief; 968
All entertain'd, each passion labours so,
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,
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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 Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: speculation in the market of risks.
Maritime risks, be it understood. There is a class of optimists
ready to reinsure an "overdue" ship at a heavy premium. But
nothing can insure the hearts on shore against the bitterness of
waiting for the worst.
For if a "missing" ship has never turned up within the memory of
seamen of my generation, the name of an "overdue" ship, trembling
as it were on the edge of the fatal heading, has been known to
appear as "arrived."
It must blaze up, indeed, with a great brilliance the dull
printer's ink expended on the assemblage of the few letters that
The Mirror of the Sea |
