| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: into the lake, which is six or seven feet in depth at the least.
This must have been the device of some Vauban or Cohorn of
those early times.
The style of these buildings evinces that the architect possessed
neither the art of using lime or cement of any kind, nor
the skill to throw an arch, construct a roof, or erect a stair ;
and yet, with all this ignorance, showed great ingenuity in selecting
the situation of Burghs, and regulating the access to
them, as well as neatness and regularity in the erection, since
the buildings themselves show a style of advance in the arts
scarcely consistent with the ignorance of so many of the principal
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: that her own appeal against the proprieties would
result in a deeper seclusion, she determined to goad
him into using every resource of address and subtlety
to bring about a more human state of affairs. And
she accomplished her object. Rezanov, at the end
of a week was not only infuriated but alarmed. He
knew the imagination of woman, and guessed that
Concha, in her brooding solitude, distorted all that
was unfortunate in the present and dwelt morbidly
on the future. He knew that she must resent his
part in the long separation, no doubt his lack of im-
Rezanov |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of
bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next morning
manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing
water in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and
simplicity; devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of
these antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or by
temperament; Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then,
like my grocer buried in Pere Lachaise, a good husband and a good
father. In short, he improvised public works, empires, kings, codes,
verses, a romance--and all with more range than precision. Did he not
aim at making all Europe France? And after making us weigh on the
|
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 Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Would ask the guard of braver arms, than such
As only care to have their coffers fill'd."
"My liege, it doth enhance the joy thy words
Infuse into me, mighty as it is,
To think my gladness manifest to thee,
As to myself, who own it, when thou lookst
Into the source and limit of all good,
There, where thou markest that which thou dost speak,
Thence priz'd of me the more. Glad thou hast made me.
Now make intelligent, clearing the doubt
Thy speech hath raised in me; for much I muse,
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
