| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: II. THE LOVERS
HARK! away in the woods - for the ears of love are sharp -
Stealthily, quietly touched, the note of the one-stringed harp. (4)
In the lighted house of her father, why should Taheia start?
Taheia heavy of hair, Taheia tender of heart,
Taheia the well-descended, a bountiful dealer in love,
Nimble of foot like the deer, and kind of eye like the dove?
Sly and shy as a cat, with never a change of face,
Taheia slips to the door, like one that would breathe a space;
Saunters and pauses, and looks at the stars, and lists to the seas;
Then sudden and swift as a cat, she plunges under the trees.
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: and that looseness, never much my affair, had never been so little
so as on this particular occasion. All of which reflexions flocked
to the standard from the moment--a very early one--the question of
how to keep my form amusing while sticking so close to my central
figure and constantly taking its pattern from him had to be faced.
He arrives (arrives at Chester) as for the dreadful purpose of
giving his creator "no end" to tell about him--before which
rigorous mission the serenest of creators might well have quailed.
I was far from the serenest; I was more than agitated enough to
reflect that, grimly deprived of one alternative or one substitute
for "telling," I must address myself tooth and nail to another. I
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: that line on the flat sands that, with all their number and their
fury, they might never pass.
'Thus far shalt thou go,' said I, 'and no farther.' And then I
quoted as solemnly as I was able a verse that I had often before
fitted to the chorus of the breakers:-
But yet the Lord that is on high,
Is more of might by far,
Than noise of many waters is,
As great sea billows are.
'Ay,' said my kinsinan, 'at the hinder end, the Lord will triumph;
I dinnae misdoobt that. But here on earth, even silly men-folk
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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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: her husband. Paz might well be forgotten. Nevertheless, in the month
of May, as she drove home from the Bois, just before she left Paris
for Ronquerolles, her uncle's estate in Burgundy, she noticed
Thaddeus, elegantly dressed, sauntering on one of the side-paths of
the Champs-Elysees, in the seventh heaven of delight at seeing his
beautiful countess in her elegant carriage with its spirited horses
and sparkling liveries,--in short, his beloved family the admired of
all.
"There's the captain," she said to her husband.
"He's happy!" said Adam. "This is his delight. He knows there's no
equipage more elegant than ours, and he is rejoicing to think that
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