| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: within the embrasure.
Releasing my hold upon the ivy, I dropped the re-maining
distance to the ground, saved from laceration only because
the lion's paw struck the thick stem of ivy.
The creature was making a frightful racket now, leaping back
and forth from the floor at the broad window ledge, tearing
at the masonry with his claws in vain attempts to reach me.
But the opening was too narrow, and the masonry too solid.
Victory had commenced the descent, but I called to her to
stop just above the window, and, as the lion reappeared,
growling and snarling, I put a .33 bullet in his face, and
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: Then followed a page and a half on the evils of the existing
system of the presentation to livings by private persons, ending
with the suggestion that I had probably committed a sin in buying
this particular advowson in order to increase my local authority,
that is, if I had bought it, a point on which he was ignorant.
Finally he informed me that as he had to christen a sick baby
five miles away on a certain moor and it was too wet for him to
ride his bicycle, he must stop. And he stopped.
There was, however, a P.S. to the letter, which ran as follows:
"Someone told me that you were dead a few years ago, and of
course it may be another man of the same name who owns Fulcombe.
When the World Shook |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: cing the addresses of a thousand;--or that the finest
assemblage of features, the greatest taste in dress, the
genteelest address, or the most brilliant wit, cannot
eventually secure a coquette from contempt and
ridicule.
MANLY
And I have learned that probity, virtue, honour,
though they should not have received the polish of
Europe, will secure to an honest American the good
graces of his fair countrywomen, and, I hope, the
applause of THE PUBLIC.
|
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 Gambara by Honore de Balzac: him with a laugh in his sleeve, as at a good joke in which he
flattered himself that he was a partner.
"There is a great deal that strikes me as very true in all you have
said," Gambara went on; "but be careful. Your argument, while
reflecting on Italian sensuality, seems to me to lean towards German
idealism, which is no less fatal heresy. If men of imagination and
good sense, like you, desert one camp only to join the other; if they
cannot keep to the happy medium between two forms of extravagance, we
shall always be exposed to the satire of the sophists, who deny all
progress, who compare the genius of man to this tablecloth, which,
being too short to cover the whole of Signor Giardini's table, decks
Gambara |
