| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
II.
One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: Rev. George Taplin, superintendent of the native
Industrial Settlement at Port Macleay. From Mr. Archibald G. Lang,
of Coranderik, Victoria, a teacher at a school where aborigines,
old and young, are collected from all parts of the colony.
From Mr. H. B. Lane, of Belfast, Victoria, a police magistrate
and warden, whose observations, as I am assured, are highly trustworthy.
From Mr. Templeton Bunnett, of Echuca, whose station is on the borders
of the colony of Victoria, and who has thus been able to observe
many aborigines who have had little intercourse with white men.
He compared his observations with those made by two other gentlemen
long resident in the neighbourhood. Also from Mr. J. Bulmer,
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: moustaches as he speaks. Last and most remarkable, 'My
sword,' says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, he in whom Great-
heart delighted, 'my sword I give to him that shall succeed
me in my pilgrimage, AND MY COURAGE AND SKILL TO HIM THAT CAN
GET IT.' And after this boast, more arrogantly unorthodox
than was ever dreamed of by the rejected Ignorance, we are
told that 'all the trumpets sounded for him on the other
side.'
In every page the book is stamped with the same energy of
vision and the same energy of belief. The quality is equally
and indifferently displayed in the spirit of the fighting,
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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 Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: "Oh, I'm all right," she replied. "And you've come to--your
wound's healed; but you've been sick. Fever, I guess. I did all
I could."
Duane saw now that the difference in her was a whiteness and
tightness of skin, a hollowness of eye, a look of strain.
"Fever? How long have we been here?" he asked.
She took some pebbles from the crown of his sombrero and
counted them.
"Nine. Nine days," she answered.
"Nine days!" he exclaimed, incredulously. But another look at
her assured him that she meant what she said. "I've been sick
The Lone Star Ranger |
