| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: reader would be apt to associate no ideas but those of wild
superstition and rude manners, is in the highest degree
interesting, and I cannot resist the temptation of quoting two of
the songs of this hitherto unheard-of poet of humble life. They
are thus introduced by the reviewer:--
"Upon one occasion, it seems, Rob's attendance upon his master's
cattle business detained him a whole year from home, and at his
return he found that a fair maiden to whom his troth had been
plighted of yore had lost sight of her vows, and was on the eve
of being married to a rival (a carpenter by trade), who had
profited by the young drover's absence. The following song was
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: bars of the window with a piece of tin which he had picked up,
with an idle, uncertain, vacant stare, just as a child or idiot
would do.
"Tryin' to get out, old boy?" laughed Haley. "Them irons will
need a crow-bar beside your tin, before you can open 'em."
Wolfe laughed, too, in a senseless way.
"I think I'll get out," he said.
"I believe his brain's touched," said Haley, when he came out.
The puddler scraped away with the tin for half an hour. Still
Deborah did not speak. At last she ventured nearer, and touched
his arm.
Life in the Iron-Mills |
