| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: to time with a swaggering grace, and looked round disdainfully on the
rest of the crew. A high-born damsel, with a falcon on her wrist, only
spoke with her mother or with a churchman of high rank, who was
evidently a relation. All these persons made a great deal of noise,
and talked among themselves as though there were no one else in the
boat; yet close beside them sat a man of great importance in the
district, a stout burgher of Bruges, wrapped about with a vast cloak.
His servant, armed to the teeth, had set down a couple of bags filled
with gold at his side. Next to the burgher came a man of learning, a
doctor of the University of Louvain, who was traveling with his clerk.
This little group of folk, who looked contemptuously at each other,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: have been gradually extinguishing them ever since. Of these traits,
stagnating influences upon their career, perhaps the most important
is the great quality of impersonality.
If we take, through the earth's temperate zone, a belt of country
whose northern and southern edges are determined by certain limiting
isotherms, not more than half the width of the zone apart, we shall
find that we have included in a relatively small extent of surface
almost all the nations of note in the world, past or present.
Now if we examine this belt, and compare the different parts of it
with one another, we shall be struck by a remarkable fact.
The peoples inhabiting it grow steadily more personal as we go west.
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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 Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: Twirl three notes and make a star --
My heart that walked with bitterness
Came back from very far.
Three shining notes were all he had,
And yet they made a starry call --
I caught life back against my breast
And kissed it, scars and all.
VII. Refuge
From my spirit's gray defeat,
From my pulse's flagging beat,
From my hopes that turned to sand
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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 Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: momentous scrawl had caught his ear. "I shall be at the creek which
is in a direct line opposite the `Chat Gris' near Calais": that phrase
might yet mean victory for him.
"Which of you knows this coast well?" he shouted to his men
who now one by one all returned from their fruitless run, and were all
assembled once more round the hut.
"I do, citoyen," said one of them, "I was born in Calais, and
know every stone of these cliffs."
"There is a creek in a direct line from the `Chat Gris'?"
"There is, citoyen. I know it well."
"The Englishman is hoping to reach that creek. He does NOT
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
