| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: "We were attacked by Sir Duncan," continued MacEagh, "and my
brother was slain--his head was withering on the battlements
which we scaled--I vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never
broken."
"It may be so," said Dalgetty; "and every thorough-bred soldier
will confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner
this story will interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless
it should move him to intercede with the Marquis to change the
manner thereof from hanging, or simple suspension, to breaking
your limbs on the roue or wheel, with the coulter of a plough, or
otherwise putting you to death by torture, surpasses my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: scattered in so many different places, cannot acknowledge the
same rules or submit to the same laws. No concurrence is
possible amongst judges so numerous, who know not when they may
meet again; and therefore each pronounces his own sentence on the
piece. If the effect of democracy is generally to question the
authority of all literary rules and conventions, on the stage it
abolishes them altogether, and puts in their place nothing but
the whim of each author and of each public.
The drama also displays in an especial manner the truth of
what I have said before in speaking more generally of style and
art in democratic literature. In reading the criticisms which
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: literary training. Schools and colleges, for one great man
whom they complete, perhaps unmake a dozen; the strong spirit
can do well upon more scanty fare.
Robert steps before us, almost from the first, in his
complete character - a proud, headstrong, impetuous lad,
greedy of pleasure, greedy of notice; in his own phrase
"panting after distinction," and in his brother's "cherishing
a particular jealousy of people who were richer or of more
consequence than himself:" with all this, he was emphatically
of the artist nature. Already he made a conspicuous figure
in Tarbolton church, with the only tied hair in the parish,
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: An old man answered her, and I knew the voice for that of one of my
father's serving men. To him she spoke in low tones, then led the
way by the garden path to the front door of the house, which she
opened with a key from her girdle, motioning to me to pass in
before her. I did so, and thinking little of such matters at the
moment, turned by habit into the doorway of the sitting-room which
I knew so well, lifting my feet to avoid stumbling on its step, and
passing into the room found my way through the gloom to the wide
fireplace where I took my stand. Lily watched me enter, then
following me, she lit a taper at the fire which smouldered on the
hearth, and placed it upon the table in the window in such fashion
Montezuma's Daughter |
