| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: Consul. For Haggard, I have a genuine affection; he is a
loveable man.
Wearyful man! 'Here is the yarn of Loudon Dodd, NOT AS HE
TOLD IT, BUT AS IT WAS AFTERWARDS WRITTEN.' These words were
left out by some carelessness, and I think I have been thrice
tackled about them. Grave them in your mind and wear them on
your forehead.
The Lang story will have very little about the treasure; THE
MASTER will appear; and it is to a great extent a tale of
Prince Charlie AFTER the '45, and a love story forbye: the
hero is a melancholy exile, and marries a young woman who
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: sense of insult. 'It is a way we have in our countryside,' said
they. And a very becoming way it is. In Scotland, where also you
will get services for nothing, the good people reject your money as
if you had been trying to corrupt a voter. When people take the
trouble to do dignified acts, it is worth while to take a little
more, and allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But in
our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore years and ten
in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in our ears from birth to
burial, we do our good and bad with a high hand and almost
offensively; and make even our alms a witness-bearing and an act of
war against the wrong.
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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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: which, to judge from what ensued, must, I suppose, have burst and left a
portion of its fabric sticking to the barrel. At any rate, when I tried
to, get in the new cartridge it would only enter half-way; and--would
you believe it?--this was the moment that the lioness, attracted no
doubt by the outcry of her cub, chose to put in an appearance. There
she stood, twenty paces or so from me, lashing her tail and looking just
as wicked as it is possible to conceive. Slowly I stepped backwards,
trying to push in the new case, and as I did so she moved on in little
runs, dropping down after each run. The danger was imminent, and the
case would not go in. At the moment I oddly enough thought of the
cartridge maker, whose name I will not mention, and earnestly hoped that
Long Odds |
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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: full consciousness of death. To us--the portress, the old pensioner,
and myself--he looked like one of the old Romans standing behind the
Consuls in Lethiere's picture of the Death of the Sons of Brutus.
" 'He was a good-plucked one, the old Lascar!' said the pensioner in
his soldierly fashion.
"But as for me, the dying man's fantastical enumeration of his riches
still sounding in my ears, and my eyes, following the direction of
his, rested on that heap of ashes. It struck me that it was very
large. I took the tongs, and as soon as I stirred the cinders, I felt
the metal underneath, a mass of gold and silver coins, receipts taken
during his illness, doubtless, after he grew too feeble to lock the
Gobseck |
