| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: know his business. I have seen him, monsieur, filing and forging his
instruments and eating black bread with an appetite that I envied him
--I, who have the best table in Paris.
"Yes, Excellenza, in a quarter of an hour you shall know the man I am.
I have introduced certain refinements into Italian cookery that will
amaze you! Excellenza, I am a Neapolitan--that is to say, a born cook.
But of what use is instinct without knowledge? Knowledge! I have spent
thirty years in acquiring it, and you see where it has left me. My
history is that of every man of talent. My attempts, my experiments,
have ruined three restaurants in succession at Naples, Parma, and
Rome. To this day, when I am reduced to make a trade of my art, I more
Gambara |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: As it falls and flecks an oak-tree
Through the rifted leaves and branches.
O'er the water floating, flying,
Something in the hazy distance,
Something in the mists of morning,
Loomed and lifted from the water,
Now seemed floating, now seemed flying,
Coming nearer, nearer, nearer.
Was it Shingebis the diver?
Or the pelican, the Shada?
Or the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah?
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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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: certainly has claims to be considered the most remarkable spendthrift
on record. How he set about it, in a place where there are no
luxuries for sale, and where the board at the best inn comes to
little more than a shilling a day, is a problem for the wise. His
son, ruined as the family was, went as far as Paris to sow his wild
oats; and so the cases of father and son mark an epoch in the history
of centralisation in France. Not until the latter had got into the
train was the work of Richelieu complete.
It is a people of lace-makers. The women sit in the streets by
groups of five or six; and the noise of the bobbins is audible from
one group to another. Now and then you will hear one woman
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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 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: at village lunchrooms to sit on high stools at a counter and drink coffee from
thick cups. Sometimes Paul came over in the evening with his violin, and even
Zilla was silent as the lonely man who had lost his way and forever crept down
unfamiliar roads spun out his dark soul in music.
II
Nothing gave Babbitt more purification and publicity than his labors for the
Sunday School.
His church, the Chatham Road Presbyterian, was one of the largest and richest,
one of the most oaken and velvety, in Zenith. The pastor was the Reverend
John Jennison Drew, M.A., D.D., LL.D. (The M.A. and the D.D. were from Elbert
University, Nebraska, the LL.D. from Waterbury College, Oklahoma.) He was
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