| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: servant that Croizeau, by popular report of the neighborhood of the
Rue de Buffault, where he lived, was a man of exceeding stinginess,
possessed of forty thousand francs per annum. A week after the
instalment of the charming librarian he was delivered of a pun:
" 'You lend me books (livres), but I give you plenty of francs in
return,' said he.
"A few days later he put on a knowing little air, as much as to say,
'I know you are engaged, but my turn will come one day; I am a
widower.'
"He always came arrayed in fine linen, a cornflower blue coat, a
paduasoy waistcoat, black trousers, and black ribbon bows on the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: plantations at their narrowest. Then presently, while he was
trying to apply the methodical teachings of the St. John's
Ambulance classes to a rather abnormal case, Beatrice came
galloping through the trees full-tilt, with Lord Carnaby hard
behind her, and she was hatless, muddy from a fall, and white as
death. "And cool as a cucumber, too," said Cothope, turning it
over in his mind as he told me.
("They never seem quite to have their heads, and never seem quite
to lose 'em," said Cothope, generalising about the sex.)
Also he witnessed she acted with remarkable decision. The
question was whether I should be taken to the house her
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: be bestowed, because it attributes to him the highest faculty - The
Art of Seeing; but the study and the book would not have given
that. It is God's gift wheresoever educated: but its true school-
room is the camp and the ocean, the prairie and the forest; active,
self-helping life, which can grapple with Nature herself: not
merely with printed-books about her. Let no one think that this
same Natural History is a pursuit fitted only for effeminate or
pedantic men. I should say, rather, that the qualifications
required for a perfect naturalist are as many and as lofty as were
required, by old chivalrous writers, for the perfect knight-errant
of the Middle Ages: for (to sketch an ideal, of which I am happy
|
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 The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: ruined house; and the caldron, and the fire, which was now burning
low, and the dead deer's carcase on the hawthorn, remained alone to
testify they had been there.
CHAPTER V - "BLOODY AS THE HUNTER"
The lads lay quiet till the last footstep had melted on the wind.
Then they arose, and with many an ache, for they were weary with
constraint, clambered through the ruins, and recrossed the ditch
upon the rafter. Matcham had picked up the windac and went first,
Dick following stiffly, with his cross-bow on his arm.
"And now," said Matcham, "forth to Holywood."
"To Holywood!" cried Dick, "when good fellows stand shot? Not I!
|
