| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: ``Here we will build,'' quoth the Viceroy, ``a city named
Isabella.''
CHAPTER XXIX
CHRISTMASTIDE, a year from the sinking of the
_Santa Maria_, came to nigh two thousand Christian men
dwelling in some manner of houses by a river in a
land that, so short time before, had never heard the word
``Christmas.'' Now, in Spain and elsewhere, men and
women, hearing Christmas bells, might wonder, ``What
are they doing--are they also going to mass--those
adventurers across the Sea of Darkness? Have they converted
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Ready to sing, and in like strain reply.
Hither had strayed, while from the frost I fend
My tender myrtles, the he-goat himself,
Lord of the flock; when Daphnis I espy!
Soon as he saw me, "Hither haste," he cried,
"O Meliboeus! goat and kids are safe;
And, if you have an idle hour to spare,
Rest here beneath the shade. Hither the steers
Will through the meadows, of their own free will,
Untended come to drink. Here Mincius hath
With tender rushes rimmed his verdant banks,
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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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own.
See how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light,
Yet in those lucid globes no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling round,
Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
With music it is heaven to hear.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
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 Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: only a kilt, their bodies being naked to the waist. Good took
off his hat to the old gentleman with an extra flourish, and
inquired after his health in the purest English, to which he
replied by laying the first two fingers of his right hand horizontally
across his lips and holding them there for a moment, which we
took as his method of salutation. Then he also addressed some
remarks to us in the same soft accents that had distinguished
our first interviewer, which we were forced to indicate we did
not understand by shaking our heads and shrugging our shoulders.
This last Alphonse, being to the manner born, did to perfection,
and in so polite a way that nobody could take any offence. Then
Allan Quatermain |
