| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: bed easy sleep came without waiting, and no dreams at ail. Outside his
open window was the quiet, serene darkness, where the stars shone clear,
and tranquil perfumes hung in the cloisters. But while the guest lay
sleeping all night in unchanged position like a child, up and down
between the oleanders went Padre Ignacio, walking until dawn. Temptation
indeed had come over the hill and entered the cloisters.
III
Day showed the ocean's surface no longer glassy, but lying like a mirror
breathed upon; and there between the short headlands came a sail, gray
and plain against the flat water. The priest watched through his glasses,
and saw the gradual sun grow strong upon the canvas of the barkentine.
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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: just in time to receive the shock of a body tumbling out
of the mist and knocking violently against me.
It was a little girl of about twelve years old.
"Hullo!" said the little girl in excellent English;
and then we stared at each other in astonishment.
"I thought you were Miss Robinson," said the little girl,
offering no apology for having nearly knocked me down.
"Who are you?"
"Miss Robinson? Miss Robinson?" I repeated, my eyes fixed on
the little girl's face, and a host of memories stirring within me.
"Why, didn't she <99> marry a missionary, and go out to some place
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 Daisy Miller by Henry James: "But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a Comanche savage."
"She is a young lady," said Mrs. Costello, "who has an intimacy
with her mamma's courier."
"An intimacy with the courier?" the young man demanded.
"Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the courier
like a familiar friend--like a gentleman. I shouldn't wonder
if he dines with them. Very likely they have never seen a man
with such good manners, such fine clothes, so like a gentleman.
He probably corresponds to the young lady's idea of a count.
He sits with them in the garden in the evening.
I think he smokes."
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: to the madhouse, with a damnatory creed; both seeing the stars and
the dawn, and wearing shoe-leather on the same ancient stones,
under the same pends, down the same closes, where our common
ancestors clashed in their armour, rusty or bright. And the old
Robin, who was before Burns and the flood, died in his acute,
painful youth, and left the models of the great things that were to
come; and the new, who came after, outlived his greensickness, and
has faintly tried to parody the finished work. If you will collect
the strays of Robin Fergusson, fish for material, collect any last
re-echoing of gossip, command me to do what you prefer - to write
the preface - to write the whole if you prefer: anything, so that
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