| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: He had two sons; and the younger son was a boy after his heart, but
the elder was one whom he feared. It befell one morning that the
drum sounded in the dun before it was yet day; and the King rode
with his two sons, and a brave array behind them. They rode two
hours, and came to the foot of a brown mountain that was very
steep.
"Where do we ride?" said the elder son.
"Across this brown mountain." said the King, and smiled to himself.
"My father knows what he is doing," said the younger son.
And they rode two hours more, and came to the sides of a black
river that was wondrous deep.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: high the banner of the Covenant - John, 'Land-Labourer, (4) in
the parish of Daily, in Carrick,' that `eminently pious man.'
He seems to have been a poor sickly soul, and shows himself
disabled with scrofula, and prostrate and groaning aloud with
fever; but the enthusiasm of the martyr burned high within
him.
(1) Pitcairn's CRIMINAL TRIALS, at large. - [R. L. S.]
(2) Fountainhall's DECISIONS, vol. i. pp. 56, 132, 186,
204, 368.- [R. L. S.]
(3) IBID. pp. 158, 299. - [R. L. S.]
(4) Working farmer: Fr. LABOUREUR.
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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 Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: excited this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at
three o'clock this morning, and most certainly should have been
informed of the murder had any been perpetrated. But I have proof
nearly as strong as Mr. Higginbotham's own oral testimony, in the
negative. Here is a note relating to a suit of his in the
Connecticut courts, which was delivered me from that gentleman
himself. I find it dated at ten o'clock last evening."
So saying, the lawyer exhibited the date and signature of the
note, which irrefragably proved, either that this perverse Mr.
Higginbotham was alive when he wrote it, or--as some deemed the
more probable case, of two doubtful ones--that he was so absorbed
Twice Told Tales |
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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: marvelous, which haunts the mind of man in every age. This effort of
man to clutch the infinite, which for ever slips through his
ineffectual grasp, this last tourney of thought against thought, was a
task worthy of an assembly where the most stupendous human imagination
ever known, perhaps, at that moment shone.
The Doctor began by summing up in a mild and even tone the principal
points he had so far established:
"No intellect was the exact counterpart of another. Had man any right
to require an account of his Creator for the inequality of powers
bestowed on each? Without attempting to penetrate rashly into the
designs of God, ought we not to recognize the fact that by reason of
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