| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Down the mountain the carriage was speeding.
X.
His heart
Peal'd the knell of its last hope. He rush'd on; but whither
He knew not--on, into the dark cloudy weather--
The midnight--the mountains--on, over the shelf
Of the precipice--on, still--away from himself!
Till exhausted, he sank 'mid the dead leaves and moss
At the mouth of the forest. A glimmering cross
Of gray stone stood for prayer by the woodside. He sank
Prayerless, powerless, down at its base, 'mid the dank
|
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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: efforts--often tremendous ones. "But the efforts," I said, "never
come to much: the only things that come to much are the
abandonments, the surrenders."
"And how much do they come to?"
"You're right to put it as if we had a big bill to pay, but, as
I've told you before, your questions are rather terrible. They
come, these mere exercises of genius, to a great sum total of
poetry, of philosophy, a mighty mass of speculation, notation,
quotation. The genius is there, you see, to meet the surrender;
but there's no genius to support the defence."
"But what is there, after all, at his age, to show?"
|
