| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: own life, thou wilt take ours also; still live and suffer. We will stand by
thee, nothing shall sever us from thy side, and love, with ever-watchful
solicitude, shall prepare for thee the sweetest consolation in its loving
arms. Be ours! Ours! I dare not say, mine.
Clara. Hush, Brackenburg! Thou feelest not what chord thou touchest.
Where hope appears to thee, I see only despair.
Brackenburg. Share hope with the living! Pause on the brink of the
precipice, cast one glance into the gulf below, and then look back on us.
Clara. I have conquered; call me not back to the struggle.
Brackenburg. Thou art stunned; enveloped in night, thou seekest the abyss.
Every light is not yet extinguished, yet many days!--
Egmont |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: sat motionless, as if a sudden stupor had seized her. Her husband was
as white and wasted as if he had risen out of his grave.
" 'You have filled my life to the full with trouble, and now you are
trying to vex my deathbed, to warp my boy's mind, and make a depraved
man of him!' he cried, hoarsely.
"The Countess flung herself at his feet. His face, working with the
last emotions of life, was almost hideous to see.
" 'Mercy! mercy!' she cried aloud, shedding a torrent of tears.
" 'Have you shown me any pity?' he asked. 'I allowed you to squander
your own money, and now do you mean to squander my fortune, too, and
ruin my son?'
Gobseck |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis: "I have ice--you shall have all the ice you want!"
"Oh," she murmured, leaning towards him, "you cannot know----"
But the rest was lost in an incoherent babble, and with a deep
sigh she fell lax into Cleggett's arms. The reaction from
despair had been too much for her; it had come too suddenly; at
the first word of reassurance, at the first ray of dawning hope,
she had fainted. High-strung natures, intrepid in the face of
danger, are apt to such collapses in the moment of deliverance;
and, whatever the nature of the lady's trouble, Cleggett gained
from her swoon a sharp sense of its intensity.
Cleggett was not used to having beautiful women faint and fall
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: leaning out of window and gazing on the river; doubtless
there blows just then "a pleasant wind from out the land of
France," and some ship comes up the river: "the ship of good
news." At the door we find him yet again; this time
embracing a messenger, while a groom stands by holding two
saddled horses. And yet further to the left, a cavalcade
defiles out of the tower; the duke is on his way at last
towards "the sunshine of France."
III.
During the five-and-twenty years of his captivity, Charles
had not lost in the esteem of his fellow-countrymen. For so
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