| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: quiet astonishment.
'Sir Huon of Bordeaux - he succeeded King Oberon. He had
been a bold knight once, but he was lost on the road to Babylon, a
long while back. Have you ever heard "How many miles to
Babylon?"?'
'Of course,' said Dan, flushing.
'Well, Sir Huon was young when that song was new. But
about tricks on mortal babies. I said to Sir Huon in the fern here,
on just such a morning as this: "If you crave to act and influence
on folk in housen, which I know is your desire, why don't you
take some human cradle-babe by fair dealing, and bring him up
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: and she retreated. "But my children are there!" she cried in a
voice of unspeakable agony, as she seemed to make another effort;
"here I am--here I am come to save you.--Oh God! They are all
blazing!--Take this arm--no, not that, it is scorched and disabled--
well, any arm--take hold of my clothes--no, they are blazing too!--
Well, take me all on fire as I am!--And their hair, how it
hisses!--Water, one drop of water for my youngest--he is but an
infant--for my youngest, and let me burn!" She paused in horrid
silence, to watch the fall of a blazing rafter that was about to
shatter the staircase on which she stood.--"The roof has fallen on
my head!" she exclaimed. "The earth is weak, and all the
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: I see it now. A crisis is really the commonest thing in the world.
The reason why life sometimes seems dull to us is because we do not
perceive the importance and the excitement of getting bait.
TALKABILITY
A PRELUDE AND THEME WITH VARIATIONS
"He praises a meditative life, and with evident sincerity: but we
feel that he liked nothing so well as good talk."--JAMES RUSSELL
LOWELL: Walton.
I
PRELUDE--ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM
The inventor of the familiar maxim that "fishermen must not talk" 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 The Iliad by Homer: eager for battle and the war-cry.
Meanwhile Minerva flung her richly embroidered vesture, made with
her own hands, on to her father's threshold, and donned the shirt
of Jove, arming herself for battle. She threw her tasselled aegis
about her shoulders, wreathed round with Rout as with a fringe,
and on it were Strife, and Strength, and Panic whose blood runs
cold; moreover there was the head of the dread monster Gorgon,
grim and awful to behold, portent of aegis-bearing Jove. On her
head she set her helmet of gold, with four plumes, and coming to
a peak both in front and behind--decked with the emblems of a
hundred cities; then she stepped into her flaming chariot and
The Iliad |
