| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: in his workshop, and that tool is sympathy. (13)
The second duty, far harder to define, is moral. There are a
thousand different humours in the mind, and about each of
them, when it is uppermost, some literature tends to be
deposited. Is this to be allowed? Not certainly in every
case, and yet perhaps in more than rigourists would fancy.
It were to be desired that all literary work, and chiefly
works of art, issued from sound, human, healthy, and potent
impulses, whether grave or laughing, humorous, romantic, or
religious.
Yet it cannot be denied that some valuable books are
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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 Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: that they cannot work so hard upon this, treat them like
horses, and make them eat the beans. Their pay is here
rather more than at the mines of Jajuel, being from 24 to 28
shillings per month. They leave the mine only once in three
weeks; when they stay with their families for two days. One
of the rules of this mine sounds very harsh, but answers
pretty well for the master. The only method of stealing gold
is to secrete pieces of the ore, and take them out as occasion
may offer. Whenever the major-domo finds a lump thus
hidden, its full value is stopped out of the wages of all the
men; who thus, without they all combine, are obliged to keep
The Voyage of the Beagle |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: the inscription; the letters were large, and had been deeply cut in
the wood.
D. O. M.
HERE LIES
THE GOOD MONSIEUR BENASSIS
THE FATHER OF US ALL
PRAY FOR HIM.
"Was it you, sir," asked Genestas, "who----?"
"No," answered the cure; it is simply what is said everywhere, from
the heights up there above us down to Grenoble, so the words have been
carved here."
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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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office; defeated for
the Senate when he had forty-five votes to begin with. by a man
who had only five votes to begin with; defeated again after his
joint debates with Douglas; defeated in the nomination for
Vice-President, when a favorable nod from half a dozen
politicians would have brought him success.
Failures? Not so. Every seeming defeat was a slow success. His
was the growth of the oak, and not of Jonah's gourd. He could not
become a master workman until he had served a tedious
apprenticeship. It was the quarter of a century of reading,
thinking, speech-making and lawmaking which fitted him to be the
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