| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: Missions as he sat in his prison-house at Pont de Montvert: the
voices of many men upraised in psalmody drew nearer and nearer
through the town. It was ten at night; he had his court about him,
priests, soldiers, and servants, to the number of twelve or
fifteen; and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his
very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. But the
psalm-singers were already at his door, fifty strong, led by the
inspired Seguier, and breathing death. To their summons, the
archpriest made answer like a stout old persecutor, and bade his
garrison fire upon the mob. One Camisard (for, according to some,
it was in this night's work that they came by the name) fell at
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: fantastic attire; and when Cloten, stung by the taunt of that
simile which his sister draws from her husband's raiment, arrays
himself in that husband's very garb to work upon her the deed of
shame, we feel that there is nothing in the whole of modern French
realism, nothing even in THERESE RAQUIN, that masterpiece of
horror, which for terrible and tragic significance can compare with
this strange scene in CYMBELINE.
In the actual dialogue also some of the most vivid passages are
those suggested by costume. Rosalind's
Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a
doublet and hose in my disposition?
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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 The Purse by Honore de Balzac: fortune to see her one day happy, rich, respected, and surrounded
by men of mark. Schinner had therefore chosen his friends among
the most honorable and distinguished men. Fastidious in the
selection of his intimates, he desired to raise still further a
position which his talent had placed high. The work to which he
had devoted himself from boyhood, by compelling him to dwell in
solitude--the mother of great thoughts--had left him the
beautiful beliefs which grace the early days of life. His
adolescent soul was not closed to any of the thousand bashful
emotions by which a young man is a being apart, whose heart
abounds in joys, in poetry, in virginal hopes, puerile in the
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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 Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: To grow old wondering what he thinks of us
And some above us, who are, in his eyes,
Above himself, -- and that's quite right and English.
Yet here we smile, or disappoint the gods
Who made it so: the gods have always eyes
To see men scratch; and they see one down here
Who itches, manor-bitten to the bone,
Albeit he knows himself -- yes, yes, he knows --
The lord of more than England and of more
Than all the seas of England in all time
Shall ever wash. D'ye wonder that I laugh?
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