| 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: romantic in design.
CHAPTER V - MY FIRST BOOK: 'TREASURE ISLAND' (17)
IT was far indeed from being my first book, for I am not a
novelist alone. But I am well aware that my paymaster, the
Great Public, regards what else I have written with
indifference, if not aversion; if it call upon me at all, it
calls on me in the familiar and indelible character; and when
I am asked to talk of my first book, no question in the world
but what is meant is my first novel.
Sooner or later, somehow, anyhow, I was bound to write a
novel. It seems vain to ask why. Men are born with various
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: you learn from them, but take care not to learn to be unholy.
Misi, Case is my college.'
"I knew not what to say. Mr. Vigours had evidently been driven out
of Falesa by the machinations of Case and with something not very
unlike the collusion of my pastor. I called to mind it was Namu
who had reassured me about Adams and traced the rumour to the ill-
will of the priest. And I saw I must inform myself more thoroughly
from an impartial source. There is an old rascal of a chief here,
Faiaso, whom I dare say you saw to-day at the council; he has been
all his life turbulent and sly, a great fomenter of rebellions, and
a thorn in the side of the mission and the island. For all that he
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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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: place except before the altar. Lords and vassals, men and women were
equals nowhere else. There alone could lovers see each other and
communicate. The festivals of the Church were the theatre of former
times; the soul of woman was more keenly stirred in a cathedral than
it is at a ball or the opera in our day; and do not strong emotions
invariably bring women back to love? By dint of mingling with life and
grasping it in all its acts and interests, religion had made itself a
sharer of all virtues, the accomplice of all vices. Religion had
passed into science, into politics, into eloquence, into crimes, into
the flesh of the sick man and the poor man; it mounted thrones; it was
everywhere. These semi-learned observations will serve, perhaps, to
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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 Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: the house, the flowers that decorated the stairs, the perfect
cleanliness of the banisters, walls, and carpets, and counted the
footmen in livery who, as the bell rang, appeared on the landing. His
eyes, which only yesterday in his parlor had sounded the dignity of
misery under the muddy clothing of the poor, now studied with the same
penetrating vision the furniture and splendor of the rooms he passed
through, to pierce the misery of grandeur.
"M. Popinot--M. Bianchon."
The two names were pronounced at the door of the boudoir where the
Marquise was sitting, a pretty room recently refurnished, and looking
out on the garden behind the house. At the moment Madame d'Espard was
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