| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: EMIGRANT. They should each cover from 130 to 150 pages when done.
That is all my literary news. Do keep me posted, won't you? Your
letter and Bob's made the fifth and sixth I have had from Europe in
three months.
At times I get terribly frightened about my work, which seems to
advance too slowly. I hope soon to have a greater burthen to
support, and must make money a great deal quicker than I used. I
may get nothing for the VENDETTA; I may only get some forty quid
for the EMIGRANT; I cannot hope to have them both done much before
the end of November.
O, and look here, why did you not send me the SPECTATOR which
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: one of all spiritual motive and all imaginative joy, you isolate
the other from all real technical perfection. The two greatest
schools of art in the world, the sculptor at Athens and the school
of painting at Venice, had their origin entirely in a long
succession of simple and earnest handicraftsmen. It was the Greek
potter who taught the sculptor that restraining influence of design
which was the glory of the Parthenon; it was the Italian decorator
of chests and household goods who kept Venetian painting always
true to its primary pictorial condition of noble colour. For we
should remember that all the arts are fine arts and all the arts
decorative arts. The greatest triumph of Italian painting was the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: water; or now and again to pass below the whistling tow-rope of the
DEO GRATIAS of Conde, or the FOUR SONS OF AYMON - there was not
much art in that; certain silly muscles managed it between sleep
and waking; and meanwhile the brain had a whole holiday, and went
to sleep. We took in, at a glance, the larger features of the
scene; and beheld, with half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling
washerwomen on the bank. Now and again we might be half-wakened by
some church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a trail of river grass
that clung about the paddle and had to be plucked off and thrown
away. But these luminous intervals were only partially luminous.
A little more of us was called into action, but never the whole.
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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 The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: eagerness.
"No," said the yeoman, sullenly; "for then you would not have
seen me here. I have labored hard for years; and my means have
been growing narrower, and my living poorer, and my heart colder
and heavier, all the time; till at last I could bear it no
longer. I set myself down to calculate whether I had best go on
the Oregon expedition, or come here to the Shaker village; but I
had not hope enough left in me to begin the world over again;
and, to make my story short, here I am. And now, youngster, take
my advice, and turn back; or else, some few years hence, you'll
have to climb this hill, with as heavy a heart as mine."
The Snow Image |
