| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: palace that the full weight of his domestic responsibilities in
the discussion of the course he had to take, became apparent.
Lady Ella met him with affection and solicitude.
"I was tired and mentally fagged," he said. "A day or so in
London had an effect of change."
She agreed that he looked much better, and remained for a
moment or so scrutinizing him with the faint anxiety of one
resolved to be completely helpful.
He regarded her with a renewed sense of her grace and dignity
and kindliness. She was wearing a grey dress of soft silky
material, touched with blue and covered with what seemed to him
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: - undignified. And to shout - what? What word? What phrase? No;
it was impossible. Then how? . . . She frowned, discovered it,
dashed at the piano, which had stood open all night, and made the
rosewood monster growl savagery in an irritated bass. She struck
chords as if firing shots after that straddling, broad figure in
ample white trousers and a dark uniform jacket with gold shoulder-
straps, and then she pursued him with the same thing she had played
the evening before - a modern, fierce piece of love music which had
been tried more than once against the thunderstorms of the group.
She accentuated its rhythm with triumphant malice, so absorbed in
her purpose that she did not notice the presence of her father,
'Twixt Land & Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: The new opera, however, had duly arrived. And as he turned its pages
Padre Ignacio was quick to seize at once upon the music that could be
taken into his church. Some of it was ready fitted. By that afternoon
Felipe and his choir could have rendered "Ah! se l' error t' ingombra"
without slip or falter.
Those were strange rehearsals of Il Trovatore upon this California shore.
For the Padre looked to Gaston to say when they went too fast or too
slow, and to correct their emphasis. And since it was hot, the little
Erard piano was carried each day out into the mission garden. There, in
the cloisters among the jessamine, the orange blossoms, the oleanders, in
the presence of the round yellow hills and the blue triangle of sea, the
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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 Finished by H. Rider Haggard: been daredevil enough to act in the same way. For you see I am
English, and I like to see an Englishman hold his own against
odds and keep up the credit of the country. Although, of course,
I sympathized with the Boers who, through their own fault, were
losing their land without a blow struck. As you know well, for
you were living near Majuba at the time, plenty of blows were
struck afterwards, but of that business I cannot bear to write.
I wonder how it will all work out after I am dead and if I shall
ever learn what happens in the end.
Now I have only mentioned this business of the Annexation and the
part you played in it, because it was on that occasion that I
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