| 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: different mood--Lord Woodville to command the Tapestried Chamber
to be unmantled, and the door built up; and General Browne to
seek in some less beautiful country, and with some less dignified
friend, forgetfulness of the painful night which he had passed in
Woodville Castle.
END OF THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER.
*
DEATH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK by Sir Walter Scott.
[The manner in which this trifle was introduced at the time to
Mr. F. M. Reynolds, editor of The Keepsake of 1828, leaves no
occasion for a preface.]
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: centuries of the past ready to answer any question her
heart or brain might ask of the world's life since the
dawn of Time.
In the stack-room below, on sixty-three miles of
shelves, stood a million others ready to come at her
slightest nod. She loved to dream here of the future,
in the moments she must wait for these messengers she
had summoned. In this magic room the past ceased to
be. These myriads of volumes made the past a myth. It
was all the living, throbbing present--with only the
golden future to be explored.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: not to find the large earthen pan, full of fragmentary eatables,
that ordinarily awaited his coming at the back doorstep of the
Seven Gables.
"I never knew Miss Hepzibah so forgetful before," said the
patriarch to himself. "She must have had a dinner yesterday,
--no question of that! She always has one, nowadays. So where's
the pot-liquor and potato-skins, I ask? Shall I knock, and see if
she's stirring yet? No, no,--'t won't do! If little Phoebe was
about the house, I should not mind knocking; but Miss Hepzibah,
likely as not, would scowl down at me out of the window, and look
cross, even if she felt pleasantly. So, I'll come back at noon."
House of Seven Gables |
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 Iliad by Homer: When he had so said he left her and went to his bellows, turning
them towards the fire and bidding them do their office. Twenty
bellows blew upon the melting-pots, and they blew blasts of every
kind, some fierce to help him when he had need of them, and
others less strong as Vulcan willed it in the course of his work.
He threw tough copper into the fire, and tin, with silver and
gold; he set his great anvil on its block, and with one hand
grasped his mighty hammer while he took the tongs in the other.
First he shaped the shield so great and strong, adorning it all
over and binding it round with a gleaming circuit in three
layers; and the baldric was made of silver. He made the shield in
The Iliad |
