| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: up on my wall as the chief of our sept. Do you know any of the
Gaelic-Celtic sharps? you might ask what the name means. It
puzzles me. I find a M'STEIN and a MACSTEPHANE; and our own great-
grandfather always called himself Steenson, though he wrote it
Stevenson. There are at least three PLACES called Stevenson -
STEVENSON in Cunningham, STEVENSON in Peebles, and STEVENSON in
Haddington. And it was not the Celtic trick, I understand, to call
places after people. I am going to write to Sir Herbert Maxwell
about the name, but you might find some one.
Get the Anglo-Saxon heresy out of your head; they superimposed
their language, they scarce modified the race; only in Berwickshire
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: all the while I could never forget he was a shabby trickster,
embarked that very moment in a dirty enterprise. I used to tell
myself at first that our acquaintance was a stroke of art, and
that I was somehow fortifying Carthew. I told myself, I say;
but I was no such fool as to believe it, even then. In these
circumstances I displayed the two chief qualities of my
character on the largest scale--my helplessness and my
instinctive love of procrastination--and fell upon a course of
action so ridiculous that I blush when I recall it.
We reached Liverpool one forenoon, the rain falling thickly and
insidiously on the filthy town. I had no plans, beyond a
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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 Gambara by Honore de Balzac: rests on the bass.
"It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his
heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is
worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of
the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every
resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices.
Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and
poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion!
"Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor).
Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will
abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A
Gambara |
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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: people. I see through things, mamma, and I understand. If a man
has a stolen shirt I see it. A man sits in a tavern and you fancy
he is drinking tea and no more, but to me the tea is neither here
nor there; I see further, he has no conscience. You can go about
the whole day and not meet one man with a conscience. And the
whole reason is that they don't know whether there is a God or
not. . . . Well, good-bye, mamma, keep alive and well, don't
remember evil against me."
Anisim bowed down at Varvara's feet.
"I thank you for everything, mamma," he said. "You are a great
gain to our family. You are a very ladylike woman, and I am very
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