| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: skill with which Dand had found and followed the trail, the barbarity to
the wounded Dickieson (which was like an open secret in the county), and
the doom which it was currently supposed they had intended for the
others, struck and stirred popular imagination. Some century earlier
the last of the minstrels might have fashioned the last of the ballads
out of that Homeric fight and chase; but the spirit was dead, or had
been reincarnated already in Mr. Sheriff Scott, and the degenerate
moorsmen must be content to tell the tale in prose, and to make of the
"Four Black Brothers" a unit after the fashion of the "Twelve Apostles"
or the "Three Musketeers."
Robert, Gilbert, Clement, and Andrew - in the proper Border diminutives,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: succeeded in creating such a perfect thing. Never again could
she so strive successfully to reproduce her pattern. Nature
bears witness concerning her that never was so fair a creature
seen in all the world. In truth I say that never did Iseut the
Fair have such radiant golden tresses that she could be compared
with this maiden. (8) The complexion of her forehead and face
was clearer and more delicate than the lily. But with wondrous
art her face with all its delicate pallor was suffused with a
fresh crimson which Nature had bestowed upon her. Her eyes were
so bright that they seemed like two stars. God never formed
better nose, mouth, and eyes. What shall I say of her beauty?
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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 The Europeans by Henry James: that to you," the Baroness continued, while she made the agreeable reflection
that she could not, at least, be accused of perverting her young kinsman.
"So if you ever fall among thieves don't go about saying I sent you to them."
Clifford thought it so comical that he should know--in spite of her
figurative language--what she meant, and that she should mean what he knew,
that he could hardly help laughing a little, although he tried hard.
"Oh, no! oh, no!" he murmured.
"Laugh out, laugh out, if I amuse you!" cried the Baroness.
"I am here for that!" And Clifford thought her a very amusing person indeed.
"But remember," she said on this occasion, "that you are coming--next year--
to pay me a visit over there."
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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 Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: any one who seemed to exist on such "large draughts of
intellectual day" as this child of seventeen, to whom one could
tell all one's personal troubles and agitations, as to a wise old
woman. In the East, maturity comes early; and this child had
already lived through all a woman's life. But there was
something else, something hardly personal, something which
belonged to a consciousness older than the Christian, which I
realised, wondered at, and admired, in her passionate
tranquillity of mind, before which everything mean and trivial
and temporary caught fire and burnt away in smoke. Her body was
never without suffering, or her heart without conflict; but
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