| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: sang a loud, audacious marching song. The rest bestirred their
feet, and even swung their muskets in time. A young officer on
horseback had hard ado to keep his countenance at the words. You
never saw anything so cheerful and spontaneous as their gait;
schoolboys do not look more eagerly at hare and hounds; and you
would have thought it impossible to tire such willing marchers.
My great delight in Compiegne was the town-hall. I doted upon the
town-hall. It is a monument of Gothic insecurity, all turreted,
and gargoyled, and slashed, and bedizened with half a score of
architectural fancies. Some of the niches are gilt and painted;
and in a great square panel in the centre, in black relief on a
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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 Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: resounded from the pavement, and the slow matches of the
arquebuses, flaring in the east wind, had thrown up at
intervals a sudden glare as far as to the panes of his
window.
But when the rising sun began to gild the coping stones at
the gable ends of the houses, Cornelius, eager to know
whether there was any living creature about him, approached
the window, and cast a sad look round the circular yard
before him
At the end of the yard a dark mass, tinted with a dingy blue
by the morning dawn, rose before him, its dark outlines
The Black Tulip |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: a good, they could not appear bad for any one?
Here I interposed and said to them: If you two were having an argument
about equitation and what was the best way of riding, supposing that I knew
the art myself, I should try to bring you to an agreement. For I should be
ashamed if I were present and did not do what I could to prevent your
difference. And I should do the same if you were quarrelling about any
other art and were likely, unless you agreed on the point in dispute, to
part as enemies instead of as friends. But now, when we are contending
about a thing of which the usefulness continues during the whole of life,
and it makes an enormous difference whether we are to regard it as
beneficial or not,--a thing, too, which is esteemed of the highest
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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 Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: in Scotland, in hope of the sudden return and regiment of that
cruel murderer of her awin husband, of whose lords the said
Earl was called one; and yet, oftener than once, he was solemnly
sworn to the King and to his Regent.''
The Journalist then recites the complaint of the injured
Allan Stewart, Commendator of Crossraguel, to the Regent
and Privy Council, averring his having been carried, partly by
flattery, partly by force, to the black vault of Denure, a strong
fortalice, built on a rock overhanging the Irish channel, where
to execute leases and conveyances of the whole churches and
parsonages belonging to the Abbey of Crossraguel, which he
Ivanhoe |
