| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: of narrative must be equally observed. The choice of a noble and
swelling style in prose affects the problem of narration in the
same way, if not to the same degree, as the choice of measured
verse; for both imply a closer synthesis of events, a higher key of
dialogue, and a more picked and stately strain of words. If you
are to refuse DON JUAN, it is hard to see why you should include
ZANONI or (to bracket works of very different value) THE SCARLET
LETTER; and by what discrimination are you to open your doors TO
THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS and close them on THE FAERY QUEEN? To bring
things closer home, I will here propound to Mr. Besant a conundrum.
A narrative called PARADISE LOST was written in English verse by
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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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: museum-skulls that did not daily through long years of the
foretime hold fast to the body struggling in despair of some
fated living victim. Forms of horror just as dreadful to the
victims, if on a smaller spatial scale, fill the world about us
to-day. Here on our very <161> hearths and in our gardens the
infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or holds the hot bird
fluttering in her jaws. Crocodiles and rattlesnakes and pythons
are at this moment vessels of life as real as we are; their
loathsome existence fills every minute of every day that drags
its length along; and whenever they or other wild beasts clutch
their living prey, the deadly horror which an agitated
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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: welcomed in Paris with the cordiality, essentially French, that a man
always finds there, when he has a pleasant wit, a sounding name, two
hundred thousand francs a year, and a prepossessing person. To such a
man banishment could but be a pleasure tour; his property was simply
sequestrated, and his friends let him know that after an absence of
two years he might return to his native land without danger.
After rhyming /crudeli affanni/ with /i miei tiranni/ in a dozen or so
of sonnets, and maintaining as many hapless Italian refugees out of
his own purse, Count Andrea, who was so unlucky as to be a poet,
thought himself released from patriotic obligations. So, ever since
his arrival, he had given himself up recklessly to the pleasures of
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 Georgics by Virgil: Of rooks from food returning in long line
Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see
The various ocean-fowl and those that pry
Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools,
Cayster, as in eager rivalry,
About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray,
Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run
Into the billows, for sheer idle joy
Of their mad bathing-revel. Then the crow
With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain,
Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.
Georgics |
