| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: And be sure we shall not forget the brave officers
that have brought you safely to our distant shores,
nor the distinguished scholar who guards your ex-
cellency's health." He turned to Langsdorff and
repeated himself in Latin. The naturalist, whose
sharp nose was always lifted as if in protest against
oversight and ready to pounce upon and penetrate
the least of mysteries, bowed with his hand on his
heart, and translated for the benefit of the officers.
"Humph!" said Davidov in Russian. "Much the
Chamberlain will care for the prayers of the Cath-
Rezanov |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: any more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful to him than
their arguments. Then the dawn came in at his window, and he lay watching
its gray grow warm into color, until suddenly he sprang from his bed and
looked at the sea. Blue it lay, sapphire-hued and dancing with points of
gold, lovely and luring as a charm; and over its triangle the south-bound
ship was approaching. People were on board who in a few weeks would be
sailing the Atlantic, while he would stand here looking out of this same
window. "Merciful God!" he cried, sinking on his knees. "Heavenly
Father, Thou seest this evil in my heart! Thou knowest that my weak hand
cannot pluck it out! My strength is breaking, and still Thou makest my
burden heavier than I can bear." He stopped, breathless and trembling.
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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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: hands, we know much more about Shakespear than we know about Dickens
or Thackeray: the only difficulty is that we deliberately suppress it
because it proves that Shakespear was not only very unlike the
conception of a god current in Clapham, but was not, according to the
same reckoning, even a respectable man. The academic view starts with
a Shakespear who was not scurrilous; therefore the verses about "lousy
Lucy" cannot have been written by him, and the cognate passages in the
plays are either strokes of character-drawing or gags interpolated by
the actors. This ideal Shakespear was too well behaved to get drunk;
therefore the tradition that his death was hastened by a drinking bout
with Jonson and Drayton must be rejected, and the remorse of Cassio
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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 Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: For where the towers and walls are falling, where in the ditches
Dirt is collected, and dirt in every street is seen lying,
Where the stones come out of their groove, and are not replaced there,
Where the beams are rotting, and vainly the houses are waiting
New supports; that town is sure to be wretchedly managed.
For where order and cleanliness reign not supreme in high places,
Then to dirt and delay the citizens soon get accustom'd,
Just as the beggar's accustom'd to wear his cloths full of tatters.
Therefore I often have wish'd that Hermann would start on his travels
Ere he's much older, and visit at any rate Strasburg and Frankfort,
And that pleasant town, Mannheim, so evenly built and so cheerful.
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