| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Callimachus's hymns, those may read who list. They are highly finished
enough; the work of a man who knew thoroughly what sort of article he
intended to make, and what were the most approved methods of making it.
Curious and cumbrous mythological lore comes out in every other line.
The smartness, the fine epithets, the recondite conceits, the bits of
effect, are beyond all praise; but as for one spark of life, of poetry,
of real belief, you will find none; not even in that famous Lavacrum
Palladis which Angelo Poliziano thought worth translating into Latin
elegiacs, about the same time that the learned Florentine, Antonio Maria
Salviano, found Berenice's Hair worthy to be paraphrased back from
Catullus' Latin into Greek, to give the world some faint notion of the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.
GLOSTER.
Away betimes, before his forces join,
And take the great-grown traitor unawares.
Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.
[Exeunt.]
ACT V.
SCENE I. Coventry.
[Enter, upon the walls, WARWICK, the Mayor of Coventry, two
Messengers, and others.]
WARWICK.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: to him like a royal palace when he first beheld it,
and still produced upon him an effect of undigestible
largeness and strangeness. It was as a whole not so old
as the agents had represented it, by some centuries,
but it adapted itself as little to his preconceived notions
of domesticity as if it had been built by Druids. The task
of seeming to be at home in it had as many sides to it as
there were minutes in the day--and oddly enough, Thorpe found
in their study and observance a congenial occupation.
Whether he was reading in the library--where there was
an admirable collection of books of worth--or walking
The Market-Place |
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 Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: style of Talleyrand. Their wit is often so refined that the point is
imperceptible; they are like billiard-players who avoid hitting the
ball with consummate dexterity. These individuals are usually
taciturn, and when they talk it is only about Spain, Vienna, Italy, or
Petersburg. Names of countries act like springs in their mind; press
them, and the ringing of their changes begins.
"That Madame Firmiani sees a great deal of the faubourg Saint-Germain,
doesn't she?" This from a person who desires to belong to the class
Distinguished. She gives the "de" to everybody,--to Monsieur Dupin
senior, to Monsieur Lafayette; she flings it right and left and
humiliates many. This woman spends her life in striving to know and do
|
