| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming
In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;
And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,
A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,
The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.
Violet now, in veil on veil of evening
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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 Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: her soil.[18]
[18] But now, in annexing Alsace, Germany has "annexed" pretty
much the whole of this department of French scholarship,--a
curious incidental consequence of the late war.
None of these books, however, has achieved such wide-spread
celebrity, or done so much toward interesting the general public
in this class of historical inquiries, as the "Life of Jesus," by
Renan. This pre-eminence of fame is partly, but not wholly,
deserved. From a purely literary point of view, Renan's work
doubtless merits all the celebrity it has gained. Its author
writes a style such as is perhaps surpassed by that of no other
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
