| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: of the promptness with which I had met Miss Braby at Liverpool on
her return from her fiasco in the States. Hadn't we published,
while its freshness and flavour were unimpaired, Miss Braby's own
version of that great international episode? I felt somewhat
uneasy at this lumping of the actress and the author, and I confess
that after having enlisted Mr. Pinhorn's sympathies I
procrastinated a little. I had succeeded better than I wished, and
I had, as it happened, work nearer at hand. A few days later I
called on Lord Crouchley and carried off in triumph the most
unintelligible statement that had yet appeared of his lordship's
reasons for his change of front. I thus set in motion in the daily
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: red shirt-boxes, now a pulp from recent rain.
As seen from Main Street, Oleson & McGuire's Meat Market
had a sanitary and virtuous expression with its new tile
counter, fresh sawdust on the floor, and a hanging veal cut
in rosettes. But she now viewed a back room with a homemade
refrigerator of yellow smeared with black grease. A man
in an apron spotted with dry blood was hoisting out a hard
slab of meat.
Behind Billy's Lunch, the cook, in an apron which must
long ago have been white, smoked a pipe and spat at the
pest of sticky flies. In the center of the block, by itself, was
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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: classical. For the rest, however, the Abbe likes places where many
alleys meet; or which, like the Belle-Etoile, are kept up 'by a
special gardener,' and admires at the Table du Roi the labours of the
Grand Master of Woods and Waters, the Sieur de la Falure, 'qui a fait
faire ce magnifique endroit.'
But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a
claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality
of the air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully
changes and renews a weary spirit. Disappointed men, sick Francis
Firsts and vanquished Grand Monarchs, time out of mind have come here
for consolation. Hither perplexed folk have retired out of the press
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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 Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: And binding with briars my joys and desires.
THE LITTLE VAGABOND
Dear mother, dear mother, the Church is cold;
But the Alehouse is healthy, and pleasant, and warm.
Besides, I can tell where I am used well;
Such usage in heaven will never do well.
But, if at the Church they would give us some ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
We'd sing and we'd pray all the livelong day,
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.
Then the Parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
