| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: through which we entered by our bridge of flying plank - was
still entire, a handsome, panelled door, the most finished
piece of carpentry in Silverado. And the two lowest bunks
next to this we roughly filled with hay for that night's use.
Through the opposite, or eastern-looking gable, with its open
door and window, a faint, disused starshine came into the
room like mist; and when we were once in bed, we lay,
awaiting sleep, in a haunted, incomplete obscurity. At first
the silence of the night was utter. Then a high wind began
in the distance among the tree-tops, and for hours continued
to grow higher. It seemed to me much such a wind as we had
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: When youthful hope is highest, and every heart
Drained with each wild pulsation? How they ply
The circling lash, and reaching forward let
The reins hang free! Swift spins the glowing wheel;
And now they stoop, and now erect in air
Seem borne through space and towering to the sky:
No stop, no stay; the dun sand whirls aloft;
They reek with foam-flakes and pursuing breath;
So sweet is fame, so prized the victor's palm.
'Twas Ericthonius first took heart to yoke
Four horses to his car, and rode above
Georgics |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: inadequate, of sense impressions. It is in the brain that the
poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings.
Of late I have been studying with diligence the four prose poems
about Christ. At Christmas I managed to get hold of a Greek
Testament, and every morning, after I had cleaned my cell and
polished my tins, I read a little of the Gospels, a dozen verses
taken by chance anywhere. It is a delightful way of opening the
day. Every one, even in a turbulent, ill-disciplined life, should
do the same. Endless repetition, in and out of season, has spoiled
for us the freshness, the naivete, the simple romantic charm of the
Gospels. We hear them read far too often and far too badly, and
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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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: for all who heard him. We have yet to understand the economical
value of these mere accomplishments. I told the fiddler he was a
happy man, carrying happiness about with him in his fiddle-case, and
he seemed alive to the fact.
'It is a privilege,' I said. He thought a while upon the word,
turning it over in his Scots head, and then answered with conviction,
'Yes, a privilege.'
That night I was summoned by 'Merrily danced the Quake's wife' into
the companion of Steerage No. 4 and 5. This was, properly speaking,
but a strip across a deck-house, lit by a sickly lantern which swung
to and fro with the motion of the ship. Through the open slide-door
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