| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: and it was only when they at last emerged into the open air
that he said to his friend, "It seems to me that in your place
I should have come here once a week."
"Oh, no you wouldn't!" said Mr. Tristram. "You think so, but you
wouldn't. You wouldn't have had time. You would always mean to go,
but you never would go. There's better fun than that, here in Paris.
Italy's the place to see pictures; wait till you get there.
There you have to go; you can't do anything else.
It's an awful country; you can't get a decent cigar.
I don't know why I went in there, to-day; I was strolling along,
rather hard up for amusement. I sort of noticed the Louvre as
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: n'est-ce pas? Comment se fait-il que la vipere rouge ne remue plus?
. . . Tu n'as pas voulu de moi, Iokanaan. Tu m'as rejetee. Tu m'as
dit des choses infames. Tu m'as traitee comme une courtisane, comme
une prostituee, moi, Salome, fille d'Herodias, Princesse de Judee!
Eh bien, Iokanaan, moi je vis encore, mais toi tu es mort et ta tete
m'appartient. Je puis en faire ce que je veux. Je puis la jeter
aux chiens et aux oiseaux de l'air. Ce que laisseront les chiens,
les oiseaux de l'air le mangeront . . . Ah! Iokanaan, Iokanaan, tu
as ete le seul homme que j'ai aime. Tous les autres hommes
m'inspirent du degout. Mais, toi, tu etais beau. Ton corps etait
une colonne d'ivoire sur un socle d'argent. C'etait un jardin plein
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: gray-haired lads, full of hope, yet equally prepared for
resignation; taking no thought for the morrow, and ready to make the
best of to-day; harmless and happy players at the best of all games
of chance.
"In other words," I hear some severe and sour-complexioned reader
say, "in plain language, they are a pair of old gamblers."
Yes, if it pleases you to call honest men by a bad name. But they
risk nothing that is not their own; and if they lose, they are not
impoverished. They desire nothing that belongs to other men; and if
they win, no one is robbed. If all gambling were like that, it
would be difficult to see the harm in it. Indeed, a daring moralist
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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 Herland by Charlotte Gilman: and fresh-looking.
"If their hair was only long," Jeff would complain,
"they would look so much more feminine."
I rather liked it myself, after I got used to it. Why we should
so admire "a woman's crown of hair" and not admire a Chinaman's
queue is hard to explain, except that we are so convinced that
the long hair "belongs" to a woman. Whereas the "mane" in horses
is on both, and in lions, buffalos, and such creatures only on the male.
But I did miss it--at first.
Our time was quite pleasantly filled. We were free of the
garden below our windows, quite long in its irregular rambling
Herland |
