| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: three brave women of antiquity endured death or suffering in
order to share their husbands' fate. Curiously enough, the essay
concludes with these words, almost prophetic for the unhappy
reader: "I am enforced to live, and sometimes to live is
magnanimity." Whilst Georges went to fetch a cab, the widow
released Gaudry from his place of concealment, exhorted him to
have courage, and promised him, if he succeeded, the
accomplishment of his desire. And so the gay couple departed for
the ball. There the widow's high spirits, her complete
enjoyment, were remarked by more than one of her acquaintances;
she danced one dance with her lover, and with another young man
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: fixedness at the curtain. Bernard forebore to interrupt him;
we know that he was not at this moment socially inclined,
and he judged that the Captain was as little so, inasmuch as causes
even more imperious than those which had operated in his own case
must have been at the bottom of his sudden appearance in London.
On leaving the theatre, however, Bernard found himself detained
with the crowd in the vestibule near the door, which, wide open
to the street, was a scene of agitation and confusion.
It had come on to rain, and the raw dampness mingled itself
with the dusky uproar of the Strand. At last, among the press
of people, as he was passing out, our hero became aware that
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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: join the Church of Rome, I shall stipulate to be Bishop of Noyon on
the Oise.
DOWN THE OISE
TO COMPIEGNE
THE most patient people grow weary at last with being continually
wetted with rain; except of course in the Scottish Highlands, where
there are not enough fine intervals to point the difference. That
was like to be our case, the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing
of the voyage; it was nothing but clay banks and willows, and rain;
incessant, pitiless, beating rain; until we stopped to lunch at a
little inn at Pimprez, where the canal ran very near the river. We
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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 Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: struck a stone. That gave me an idea. Without taking my eyes off
the black form before me, I stooped and picked up this lump of rock;
but at my motion the Thing turned abruptly as a dog might have done,
and slunk obliquely into the further darkness. Then I recalled
a schoolboy expedient against big dogs, and twisted the rock into
my handkerchief, and gave this a turn round my wrist. I heard a movement
further off among the shadows, as if the Thing was in retreat.
Then suddenly my tense excitement gave way; I broke into a profuse
perspiration and fell a-trembling, with my adversary routed and this
weapon in my hand.
It was some time before I could summon resolution to go down through
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
