| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in
these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As
touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here
appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as
affording a glancing bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously
said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and
generations, including our own.
So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am.
Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this
world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too
rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: when I got back to camp I found them clean dried out. They hadn't had a
drop of liquor in camp for ten days, and the rainy season coming on and no
knowing when they'd get any. Well, I'd a vatje of Old Dop as high as that-
-," indicating with his hand an object about two feet high, "and the other
fellow wanted to buy it from me. I knew two of that. I said I wanted it
for myself. He offered me this, and he offered me that. At last I said,
'Well, just to oblige you, I give you the vatje and you give me the girl!'
And so he did. Most people wouldn't have fancied a nigger girl who'd had
two nigger children, but I didn't mind; it's all the same to me. And I
tell you she worked. She made a garden, and she and the other girl worked
in it; I tell you I didn't need to buy a sixpence of food for them in six
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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 An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: d'Allemagne, invested the nightpiece with a kind of sombre majesty;
while the grandeur of the service--all the grander for the strong
contrast with the poor surroundings--produced a feeling of reverent
awe.
The Sisters kneeling on each side of the altar, regardless of the
deadly chill from the wet brick floor, were engaged in prayer, while
the priest, arrayed in pontifical vestments, brought out a golden
chalice set with gems; doubtless one of the sacred vessels saved from
the pillage of the Abbaye de Chelles. Beside a ciborium, the gift of
royal munificence, the wine and water for the holy sacrifice of the
mass stood ready in two glasses such as could scarcely be found in 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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: it); and the hoe, and the potter's tools, and the thatching-needle, and at
last even the grindstones which we first had picked up and smoothed to
grind the food for our children, began to pass from our hands into his.
The old, sweet life of the open fields was ours no more; we moved within
the gates, where the time passes more slowly and the world is sadder than
in the air outside; but we had our own work still, and were content.
If, indeed, we might no longer grow the food for our people, we were still
its dressers; if we did not always plant and prepare the flax and hemp, we
still wove the garments for our race; if we did no longer raise the house
walls, the tapestries that covered them were the work of our hands; we
brewed the ale, and the simples which were used as medicines we distilled
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