| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: infinite regret that I am obliged to blame the Behaviour of any
Member of it: yet Truth being I think very excusable in an
Historian, I am necessitated to say that in this reign the roman
Catholics of England did not behave like Gentlemen to the
protestants. Their Behaviour indeed to the Royal Family and both
Houses of Parliament might justly be considered by them as very
uncivil, and even Sir Henry Percy tho' certainly the best bred
man of the party, had none of that general politeness which is so
universally pleasing, as his attentions were entirely confined to
Lord Mounteagle.
Sir Walter Raleigh flourished in this and the preceeding reign,
Love and Friendship |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: them is serving a life-sentence in the State prison for
manslaughter. When the house burned down some thirty years ago,
the woman escaped. The man's body was found with the head
crushed in--perhaps by a falling timber. The family of our
friend the rattlesnake could hardly surpass that record, I think.
But why should we blame them--any of them? They were only acting
out their natures. To one who can see and understand, it is all
perfectly simple, and interesting--immensely interesting."
It is impossible to describe the quiet eagerness, the cool
glow of fervour with which he narrated this little history. It
was the manner of the triumphant pathologist who lays bare some
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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 Georgics by Virgil: Give half the world to sunshine, half to shade,
Then urge your bulls, my masters; sow the plain
Even to the verge of tameless winter's showers
With barley: then, too, time it is to hide
Your flax in earth, and poppy, Ceres' joy,
Aye, more than time to bend above the plough,
While earth, yet dry, forbids not, and the clouds
Are buoyant. With the spring comes bean-sowing;
Thee, too, Lucerne, the crumbling furrows then
Receive, and millet's annual care returns,
What time the white bull with his gilded horns
Georgics |
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 Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: spellbound creature and made a musician of him.
"There, Felipe!" he said now. "Can you do it? Slower, and more softly,
muchacho mio. It is about the death of a man, and it should go with our
bell."
The boy listened. "Then the father has played it a tone too low," said
he, "for our bell rings the note of sol, or something very near it, as
the father must surely know." He placed the melody in the right key--an
easy thing for him; and the Padre was delighted.
"Ah, my Felipe," he exclaimed, "what could you and I not do if we had a
better organ! Only a little better! See! above this row of keys would be
a second row, and many more stops. Then we would make such music as has
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