| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: campaign?"
"Surely," replied Sir Giles Musgrave, his eye glancing slightly
from Lord Menteith to Allan M'Aulay; "we could neither march nor
fight, advance nor retreat, without the influence of the Princess
of Harps."
"The Princess of Broadswords and Targets, I say," answered his
companion; "for the Lady of Montrose herself could not be more
courteously waited upon; she has four Highland maidens, and as
many bare-legged gillies, to wait upon her orders."
"And what would you have, gentlemen?" said Allan, turning
suddenly from the Highlander with whom he was in conversation;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: and at last, to the red fires of sunset, night succeeds, and with
the night a new forest, full of whisper, gloom, and fragrance.
There are few things more renovating than to leave Paris, the
lamplit arches of the Carrousel, and the long alignment of the
glittering streets, and to bathe the senses in this fragrant
darkness of the wood.
In this continual variety the mind is kept vividly alive. It is a
changeful place to paint, a stirring place to live in. As fast as
your foot carries you, you pass from scene to scene, each
vigorously painted in the colours of the sun, each endeared by that
hereditary spell of forests on the mind of man who still remembers
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: and struggled to put by the pikes to get at them the sooner, in the
fury that possessed them at seeing in the front of the enemy fifteen
thousand slaves, whom the royal commanders had set free by
proclamation, and ranged amongst the men of arms. And a Roman
centurion is reported to have said at this sight, that he never knew
servants allowed to play the masters, unless at the Saturnalia.
These men by their deep and solid array, as well as by their daring
courage, yielded but slowly to the legions, till at last by slinging
engines, and darts, which the Romans poured in upon them behind, they
were forced to give way and scatter.
As Archelaus was extending the right wing to encompass the enemy,
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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 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: all, it may be only an error. Perhaps you took something on account of
your salary?"
Du Tillet said at once that he had taken the louis. The perfumer
opened his ledger and found that his clerk's account had not been
debited.
"I was in a hurry; but I ought to have made Popinot enter the sum,"
said Ferdinand.
"That is true," said Birotteau, bewildered by the cool unconcern of
the Norman, who well knew the worthy people among whom he had come
meaning to make his fortune. The perfumer and his clerk passed the
whole night in examining accounts, a labor which the good man knew to
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
