| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: that grow on the top of the lower, upon which it lies. The view of the
river widens out before you at every step as you climb to the house.
At the end you come to a second gateway, a Gothic archway covered with
simple ornament, now crumbling into ruin and overgrown with
wildflowers--moss and ivy, wallflowers and pellitory. Every stone wall
on the hillside is decked with this ineradicable plant-life, which
springs up along the cracks afresh with new wreaths for every time of
year.
The worm-eaten gate gives into a little garden, a strip of turf, a few
trees, and a wilderness of flowers and rose bushes--a garden won from
the rock on the highest terrace of all, with the dark, old balustrade
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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 Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: inheritance, was the decision of a single instant. And the next,
the full extent of his calamity was suddenly disclosed to him.
Declare his uncle's death? He couldn't! Since the body was lost
Joseph had (in a legal sense) become immortal.
There was no created vehicle big enough to contain Morris and his
woes. He paid the hansom off and walked on he knew not whither.
'I seem to have gone into this business with too much
precipitation,' he reflected, with a deadly sigh. 'I fear it
seems too ramified for a person of my powers of mind.'
And then a remark of his uncle's flashed into his memory: If you
want to think clearly, put it all down on paper. 'Well, the old
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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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: and Klondike to Dawson, where the Yukon was encountered. Here the
first relays waited. But here, intent to kill their first teams,
if necessary, Harrington and Savoy had had their fresh teams
placed a couple of miles beyond those of the others. In the
confusion of changing sleds they passed full half the bunch.
Perhaps thirty men were still leading them when they shot on to
the broad breast of the Yukon. Here was the tug. When the river
froze in the fall, a mile of open water had been left between two
mighty jams. This had but recently crusted, the current being
swift, and now it was as level, hard, and slippery as a dance
floor. The instant they struck this glare ice Harrington came to
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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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: direct answer--"Master Herasmus Holiday, come and speak to mon,
and please you."
"FAVETE LINGUIS," answered a voice from within;" I cannot now
come forth, Gammer Sludge, being in the very sweetest bit of my
morning studies."
"Nay, but, good now, Master Holiday, come ye out, do ye. Here's
a mon would to Wayland Smith, and I care not to show him way to
devil; his horse hath cast shoe."
"QUID MIHI CUM CABALLO?" replied the man of learning from
within; "I think there is but one wise man in the hundred, and
they cannot shoe a horse without him!"
Kenilworth |
