| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: declining the courtesy; but mine host proceeded to urge him with
arguments founded on the credit of his house, and the
construction which the good people of Cumnor might put upon such
an unsocial humour.
"By my faith, sir," he said, "it touches my reputation that men
should be merry in my house; and we have ill tongues amongst us
at Cumnor (as where be there not?), who put an evil mark on men
who pull their hat over their brows, as if they were looking back
to the days that are gone, instead of enjoying the blithe
sunshiny weather which God has sent us in the sweet looks of our
sovereign mistress, Queen Elizabeth, whom Heaven long bless and
Kenilworth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: been to the abbe nothing less than a passion, a passion full of
obstacles, and, like more guilty passions, full of hopes, pleasures,
and remorse.
The interior arrangements of the house did not allow Mademoiselle
Gamard to take more than two lodgers. Now, for about twelve years
before the day when Birotteau went to live with her she had undertaken
to keep in health and contentment two priests; namely, Monsieur l'Abbe
Troubert and Monsieur l'Abbe Chapeloud. The Abbe Troubert still lived.
The Abbe Chapeloud was dead; and Birotteau had stepped into his place.
The late Abbe Chapeloud, in life a canon of Saint-Gatien, had been an
intimate friend of the Abbe Birotteau. Every time that the latter paid
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Our songs avail no more than, as 'tis said,
Doves of Dodona when an eagle comes.
Nay, had I not, from hollow ilex-bole
Warned by a raven on the left, cut short
The rising feud, nor I, your Moeris here,
No, nor Menalcas, were alive to-day.
LYCIDAS
Alack! could any of so foul a crime
Be guilty? Ah! how nearly, thyself,
Reft was the solace that we had in thee,
Menalcas! Who then of the Nymphs had sung,
|
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 Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Of all things that life or perhaps my temperament has given me I
prize the gift of laughter as beyond price."
Her desire, always, was to be "a wild free thing of the air like
the birds, with a song in my heart." A spirit of too much fire
in too frail a body, it was rarely that her desire was fully
granted. But in Italy she found what she could not find in
England, and from Italy her letters are radiant. "This Italy is
made of gold," she writes from Florence, "the gold of dawn and
daylight, the gold of the stars, and, now dancing in weird
enchanting rhythms through this magic month of May, the gold of
fireflies in the perfumed darkness--'aerial gold.' I long to
|
