| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: flapping and arm waving. On the whole a guttural variant of
English prevailed in the sentences that alighted upon the
balloon; chiefly he was told to "gome down or you will be shot."
"All very well," said Bert, "but 'ow?"
Then they shot a little wide of the car. Latterly he had been
shot at six or seven times, and once the bullet had gone by with
a sound so persuasively like the tearing of silk that he had
resigned himself to the prospect of a headlong fall. But either
they were aiming near him or they had missed, and as yet nothing
was torn but the air about him--and his anxious soul.
He was now enjoying a respite from these attentions, but he felt
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: dispute thus agitated, however, ended by the lovers going through
an emblematic ceremony of their troth-plight, of which the vulgar
still preserve some traces. They broke betwixt them the thin
broad-piece of gold which Alice had refused to receive from
Ravenswood.
"And never shall this leave my bosom," said Lucy, as she hung
the piece of gold round her neck, and concealed it with her
handkerchief, "until you, Edgar Ravenswood, ask me to resign it
to you; and, while I wear it, never shall that heart acknowledge
another love than yours."
With like protestations, Ravenswood placed his portion of the
The Bride of Lammermoor |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: will tell thee without fail, and will hide nought, how but
lately I heard tell of the return of Odysseus, that he is
nigh at hand, and yet alive in the fat land of the men of
Thesprotia, and is bringing with him many choice treasures,
as he begs through the land. But he has lost his dear
companions and his hollow ship on the wine-dark sea, on his
way from the isle Thrinacia: for Zeus and Helios had a
grudge against him, because his company had slain the kine
of Helios. They for their part all perished in the wash of
the sea, but the wave cast him on the keel of the ship out
upon the coast, on the land of the Phaeacians that are near
The Odyssey |
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: ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows us,
so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves
some suitable sort of story as we go. We become thus, in some sense,
a centre of beauty; we are provocative of beauty, much as a gentle
and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in
others. And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the
quickest and most obedient of spirits, we may still embellish a place
with some attraction of romance. We may learn to go far afield for
associations, and handle them lightly when we have found them.
Sometimes an old print comes to our aid; I have seen many a spot lit
up at once with picturesque imaginations, by a reminiscence of
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