| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: "He has come to your call," said I; "judge how near he was to
Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father's errands. Ask
himself. If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by
me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to go with
my eyes open."
She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alan's
anxious civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for
bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour
she should have stuck by English.
Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil
(for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.
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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: accordingly, in 1789, "Lord Cornwallis after three years'
vigilant inquiry, pronounced one third of the company's
territories in Bengal to be a jungle, inhabited only by wild
beasts."
On the Western frontier of Beerbhoom the state of affairs was,
perhaps, most calamitous. In 1776, four acres out of every seven
remained untilled. Though in earlier times this district had been
a favourite highway for armies, by the year 1780 it had become an
almost impassable jungle. A small company of Sepoys, which in
that year by heroic exertions forced its way through, was obliged
to traverse 120 miles of trackless forest, swarming with tigers
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: Eminence--that is his new title, they tell me.'
'Things are quiet round here?' I asked.
'Perfectly. Since the Languedoc business came to an end, all
goes well,' he answered.
Mademoiselle had retired on our arrival, so that her brother and
I were for an hour or two this evening thrown together. I left
him at liberty to separate himself from me if he pleased, but he
did not use the opportunity. A kind of comradeship, rendered
piquant by our peculiar relations, had begun to spring up between
us. He seemed to take an odd pleasure in my company, more than
once rallied me on my post of jailor, would ask humorously if he
|
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 Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: freezing sleety wind, annoyed and punished Carley so much as a hard puffy
wind, full of sand and dust. Somewhere along the first few miles of this
road she was to meet Glenn. If she turned back for any cause he would be
worried, and, what concerned her more vitally, he would think she had not
the courage to face a little dust. So Carley rode on.
The wind appeared to be gusty. It would blow hard awhile, then lull for a
few moments. On the whole, however, it increased in volume and persistence
until she was riding against a gale. She had now come to a bare, flat,
gravelly region, scant of cedars and brush, and far ahead she could see a
dull yellow pall rising high into the sky. It was a duststorm and it was
sweeping down on the wings of that gale. Carley remembered that somewhere
The Call of the Canyon |
