| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: him (although more than once he snatched moments to
answer particular questions) was on a holiday, when the old
Siberian Hotel, now the offices of the Council, was
deserted, and I walked through empty corridors until I found
the President and his secretary at work as usual.
After telling of the building of the new railway from
Alexandrovsk Gai to the Emba, the prospects of developing
the oil industry in that district, the relative values of those
deposits and of those at Baku, and the possible decreasing
significance of Baku in Russian industry generally, we
passed to broader perspectives. I asked him what he
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: they both laughed and sang:
``Don't wipe together,
Or we'll fight
Before night.''
And the other little girls that were still washing their hands in
the white basins on the low shelf by the back-gallery lattice sang
over and over again:
``Wash together! We'll wash together!
And we'll be happy forever!''
When all the pink clean tiny hands were wiped dry, or as nearly dry
as little girls do wipe tiny pink hands, on the pink checked towel
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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 Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: than I can well digest."
Craigengelt offered to accompany him; but Bucklaw replied: "No,
no, Captain, keep you the check of the chimney-nook till I come
back; it's good sleeping in a haill skin.
Little kens the auld wife that sits by the fire,
How cauld the wind blaws in hurle-burle swire."
And singing as he went, he left the apartment.
CHAPTER VII.
Now, Billy Berwick, keep good heart,
And of they talking let me be;
But if thou art a man, as I am sure thou art,
The Bride of Lammermoor |
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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: HEARTH, a book as much above ROMOLA as ROMOLA is above DANIEL
DERONDA, and wasted the rest of his life in a foolish attempt to be
modern, to draw public attention to the state of our convict
prisons, and the management of our private lunatic asylums.
Charles Dickens was depressing enough in all conscience when he
tried to arouse our sympathy for the victims of the poor-law
administration; but Charles Reade, an artist, a scholar, a man with
a true sense of beauty, raging and roaring over the abuses of
contemporary life like a common pamphleteer or a sensational
journalist, is really a sight for the angels to weep over. Believe
me, my dear Cyril, modernity of form and modernity of subject-
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