| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: about his eyes, which are big and of a gold colour, and from either
angle of his mouth there hangs down a little barb. In every Tench's head
there are two little stones which foreign physicians make great use of,
but he is not commended for wholesome meat, though there be very
much use made of them for outward applications. Rondeletius says, that
at his being at Rome, he saw a great cure done by applying a Tench to
the feet of a very sick man. This, he says, was done after an unusual
manner, by certain Jews. And it is observed that many of those people
have many secrets yet unknown to Christians; secrets that have never
yet been written, hut have been since the days of their Solomon, who
knew the nature of all things, even from the cedar to the shrub,
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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 Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: us dismiss the riddles of belief. I like them as little as you
do. You know this is a Castalian fountain. The Emperor Hadrian
once read his fortune here from a leaf dipped in the water. Let
us see what this leaf tells us. It is already turning yellow.
How do you read that?"
"Wealth," said Hermas, laughing, as he looked at his mean
garments.
"And here is a bud on the stem that seems to be swelling.
What is that?"
"Pleasure," answered Hermas, bitterly.
"And here is a tracing of wreaths upon the surface. What
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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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: hands he rubbed together vigorously were very red and imparted to
me a chilly feeling by their mere aspect. He has remained the
only banjoist of my acquaintance, and being also a younger son of
a retired colonel, the poem of Mr. Kipling, by a strange
aberration of associated ideas, always seems to me to have been
written with an exclusive view to his person. When he did not
play the banjo he loved to sit and look at it. He proceeded to
this sentimental inspection and after meditating a while over the
strings under my silent scrutiny inquired airily:
"What are you always scribbling there, if it's fair to ask?"
It was a fair enough question, but I did not answer him, and
Some Reminiscences |
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 Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: from the railroad, and after a couple of hours' riding he
entered a town which inquiry discovered to be Bradford. It was
the largest town he had visited since Marfa, and he calculated
must have a thousand or fifteen hundred inhabitants, not
including Mexicans. He decided this would be a good place for
him to hold up for a while, being the nearest town to Ord, only
forty miles away. So he hitched his horse in front of a store
and leisurely set about studying Bradford.
It was after dark, however, that Duane verified his suspicions
concerning Bradford. The town was awake after dark, and there
was one long row of saloons, dance-halls, gambling-resorts in
The Lone Star Ranger |
