| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: stream, and, as before I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up
the Ohio and the Missouri and heard the legends of Dubuque and of
Wenona's Cliff--still thinking more of the future than of the
past or present--I saw that this was a Rhine stream of a
different kind; that the foundations of castles were yet to be
laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be thrown over the
river; and I felt that THIS WAS THE HEROIC AGE ITSELF, though we
know it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest
of men.
The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and
what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: with a downcast look and a gentle sigh.
"Dinna be cast down, bairns," said the grandmother, "we hae gude
friends that winna forsake us in adversity. There's Sir Thomas
Kittleloof is my third cousin by the mother's side, and he has
come by a hantle siller, and been made a knight-baronet into the
bargain, for being ane o' the commissioners at the Union."
"He wadna gie a bodle to save us frae famishing," said Hobbie;
"and, if he did, the bread that I bought wi't would stick in my
throat, when I thought it was part of the price of puir auld
Scotland's crown and independence."
"There's the Laird o' Dunder, ane o' the auldest families in
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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 The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: the fire. What was going on in his mind? Carley's old perplexity suddenly
had rebirth. And with it came an unfamiliar fear which she could not
smother. Every moment that she sat there beside Glenn she was realizing
more and more a yearning, passionate love for him. The unmistakable
manifestation of his joy at sight of her, the strong, almost rude
expression of his love, had called to some responsive, but hitherto unplumbed deeps of
her. If it had not been for these undeniable facts Carley would have been
panic-stricken. They reassured her, yet only made her state of mind more dissatisfied.
"Carley, do you still go in for dancing?" Glenn asked, presently, with his
thoughtful eyes turning to her.
"Of course. I like dancing, and it's about all the exercise I get," she
The Call of the Canyon |
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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: forgotten Thoreau, and Hazlitt, whose paper 'On the Spirit of
Obligations' was a turning-point in my life, and Penn, whose
little book of aphorisms had a brief but strong effect on me,
and Mitford's TALES OF OLD JAPAN, wherein I learned for the
first time the proper attitude of any rational man to his
country's laws - a secret found, and kept, in the Asiatic
islands. That I should commemorate all is more than I can
hope or the Editor could ask. It will be more to the point,
after having said so much upon improving books, to say a word
or two about the improvable reader. The gift of reading, as
I have called it, is not very common, nor very generally
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