| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: 'Yes, there is hope, beloved. Now the Otomie are cast down and
they remember that we led the flower of their land to death. But
they are brave and generous at heart, and if I can touch them
there, all may yet be well. Weariness, pain and memory make us
weak, who should be full of courage, having escaped so many ills.
Sleep, my husband, and leave me to think. All shall yet go well,
for even misfortune has an end.'
So I slept, and woke in the morning somewhat refreshed and with a
happier mind, for who is there that is not bolder when the light
shines on him and he is renewed by rest?
When I opened my eyes the sun was already high, but Otomie had
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: The coming tempests, hence both harvest-day
And seed-time, when to smite the treacherous main
With driving oars, when launch the fair-rigged fleet,
Or in ripe hour to fell the forest-pine.
Hence, too, not idly do we watch the stars-
Their rising and their setting-and the year,
Four varying seasons to one law conformed.
If chilly showers e'er shut the farmer's door,
Much that had soon with sunshine cried for haste,
He may forestall; the ploughman batters keen
His blunted share's hard tooth, scoops from a tree
Georgics |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: partiality of man's good and man's evil. I know no one whom
I less admire than Goethe; he seems a very epitome of the
sins of genius, breaking open the doors of private life, and
wantonly wounding friends, in that crowning offence of
WERTHER, and in his own character a mere pen-and-ink
Napoleon, conscious of the rights and duties of superior
talents as a Spanish inquisitor was conscious of the rights
and duties of his office. And yet in his fine devotion to
his art, in his honest and serviceable friendship for
Schiller, what lessons are contained! Biography, usually so
false to its office, does here for once perform for us some
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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 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: and wrinkling his forehead; he would find no pleasure in her flattery
after that.
"First of all," she proceeded, "I want to know why you chose to write
a play?"
"Ah! You mean it's not dramatic?"
"I mean that I don't see what it would gain by being acted. But then
does Shakespeare gain? Henry and I are always arguing about
Shakespeare. I'm certain he's wrong, but I can't prove it because I've
only seen Shakespeare acted once in Lincoln. But I'm quite positive,"
she insisted, "that Shakespeare wrote for the stage."
"You're perfectly right," Rodney exclaimed. "I was hoping you were on
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