| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: and for the same reason I will not add to or diminish the
narrative by any circumstance, whether more or less material, but
simply rehearse, as I heard it, a story of supernatural terror.
About the end of the American war, when the officers of Lord
Cornwallis's army, which surrendered at Yorktown, and others, who
had been made prisoners during the impolitic and ill-fated
controversy, were returning to their own country, to relate their
adventures, and repose themselves after their fatigues, there was
amongst them a general officer, to whom Miss S. gave the name of
Browne, but merely, as I understood, to save the inconvenience of
introducing a nameless agent in the narrative. He was an officer
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: LIV
When Phoebus rose he left his golden weed,
And donned a gite in deepest purple dyed,
His sanguine beams about his forehead spread,
A sad presage of ill that should betide,
With vermeil drops at even his tresses bleed,
Foreshows of future heat, from the ocean wide
When next he rose, and thus increased still
Their present harms with dread of future ill,
LV
While thus he bent gainst earth his scorching rays,
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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 Crito by Plato: this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is
more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any
ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of
understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when
angry, even more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not
persuaded, to be obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with
imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if
she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right;
neither may any one yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in
battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his
city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is
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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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: the expression of bitterness and sorrow in that grand face of his; the
dead eyes were lighted up, as it were, by a thought within that broke
forth like a burning flame, lit by one sole insatiable desire, written
large in vigorous characters upon an arching brow scored across with
as many lines as an old stone wall.
The old man was playing at random, without the slightest regard for
time or tune. His fingers traveled mechanically over the worn keys of
his instrument; he did not trouble himself over a false note now and
again (a /canard/, in the language of the orchestra), neither did the
dancers, nor, for that matter, did my old Italian's acolytes; for I
had made up my mind that he must be Italian, and an Italian he was.
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