| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: over the green leaves of the thicket, and the white clouds drifting,
drifting lazily across the blue deep of the sky.
II
A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
On the voyage home, she gently talked me out of my disappointment,
and into a wiser frame of mind.
It was a surprise, of course, she admitted, to find that our
wilderness was so little, and to discover the trail of a parlour-car
on the edge of Paradise. But why not turn the surprise around, and
make it pleasant instead of disagreeable? Why not look at the
contrast from the side that we liked best?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: With that he said something to La Cibot in a voice so low that the
others could not catch it, and went down after the two dealers to the
porter's room.
"Have they gone, Mme. Cibot?" asked the unhappy Pons, when she came
back again.
"Gone? . . . who?" asked she.
"Those men."
"What men? There, now, you have seen men," said she. "You have just
had a raving fit; if it hadn't been for me you would have gone out the
window, and now you are still talking of men in the room. Is it always
to be like this?"
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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 Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: any one in all the world, Myles; but I had thought that it would
make thee feel more easy, to think that the Earl was not against
thee. And, indeed, from all thou has told me, I do soothly think
that he and Sir James mean to befriend thee and hold thee privily
in kind regard."
"Then why doth he not stand forth like a man and befriend me and
my father openly, even if it be to his own peril?" said Myles,
reverting stubbornly to what he had first spoken.
Gascoyne did not answer, but lay for a long while in silence.
"Knowest thou," he suddenly asked, after a while, "who is this
great enemy of whom Sir James speaketh, and who seeketh so to
Men of Iron |
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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: little glen in it, with banks of dead fern, and a brown bog
between them, and a few fir-trees struggling up--yet, if you only
have eyes to see it, that little bit of glen is beautiful and
wonderful,--so beautiful and so wonderful and so cunningly
devised, that it took thousands of years to make it; and it is
not, I believe, half finished yet.
How do I know all that? Because a fairy told it me; a fairy who
lives up here upon the moor, and indeed in most places else, if
people have but eyes to see her. What is her name? I cannot
tell. The best name that I can give her (and I think it must be
something like her real name, because she will always answer if
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