| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: his feet on the cross-bar below, and said:
"Now, ten of you try to move it!"
I was present, and can vouch for this strange display of strength; it
was impossible to move the table.
Lambert had the gift of summoning to his aid at certain times the most
extraordinary powers, and of concentrating all his forces on a given
point. But children, like men, are wont to judge of everything by
first impressions, and after the first few days we ceased to study
Louis; he entirely belied Madame de Stael's prognostications, and
displayed none of the prodigies we looked for in him.
After three months at school, Louis was looked upon as a quite
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: "Why didn't you come before," continued the dwarf, "instead of
sending me those rascally brothers of yours, for me to have the
trouble of turning into stones? Very hard stones they make, too."
"O dear me!" said Gluck, "have you really been so cruel?"
"Cruel!" said the dwarf; "they poured unholy water into my
stream. Do you suppose I'm going to allow that?"
"Why," said Gluck, "I am sure, sir,--your Majesty, I mean,--
they got the water out of the church font."
"Very probably," replied the dwarf, "but" (and his
countenance grew stern as he spoke) "the water which has been
refused to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though it had
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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 Laches by Plato: his own trireme also burst out laughing; they could not refrain when they
beheld the weapon waving in the air, suspended from the transport. Now I
do not deny that there may be something in such an art, as Nicias asserts,
but I tell you my experience; and, as I said at first, whether this be an
art of which the advantage is so slight, or not an art at all, but only an
imposition, in either case such an acquirement is not worth having. For my
opinion is, that if the professor of this art be a coward, he will be
likely to become rash, and his character will be only more notorious; or if
he be brave, and fail ever so little, other men will be on the watch, and
he will be greatly traduced; for there is a jealousy of such pretenders;
and unless a man be pre-eminent in valour, he cannot help being ridiculous,
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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 Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: 357. This is _Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii_, the hermit-thrush
which I have heard in Quebec County. Chapman says (_Handbook of
Birds of Eastern North America_) 'it is most at home in secluded
woodland and thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not remarkable
for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and
exquisite modulation they are unequalled.' Its 'water-dripping song'
is justly celebrated.
360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of one
of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one
of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers,
at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion
The Waste Land |
