| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: comprehending people. They do not speak English in the same way
that he does--through the nose---but they think very much more in
his mental dialect than the English do. They are independent and
wide awake, curious and full of personal interest. The wayside
mind in Inverness or Perth runs more to muscle and less to fat, has
more active vanity and less passive pride, is more inquisitive and
excitable and sympathetic--in short, to use a symbolist's
description, it is more apt to be red-headed--than in Surrey or
Somerset. Scotchmen ask more questions about America, but fewer
foolish ones. You will never hear them inquiring whether there is
any good bear-hunting in the neighbourhood of Boston, or whether
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: the excellence of their devices for producing sound artistic
torture, the creator of the man-trap would occupy a very
respectable if not a very high place.
It should rather, however, be said, the inventor of the particular
form of man-trap of which this found in the keeper's out-house was
a specimen. For there were other shapes and other sizes,
instruments which, if placed in a row beside one of the type
disinterred by Tim, would have worn the subordinate aspect of the
bears, wild boars, or wolves in a travelling menagerie, as
compared with the leading lion or tiger. In short, though many
varieties had been in use during those centuries which we are
The Woodlanders |
