| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: It was from this very work that Shakespeare in all probability
derived the story of the three caskets which in "The Merchant
of Venice" forms so integral a portion of the plot.
Only think of that cloaca being supplied daily with such
dainty bibliographical treasures!
In the Lansdowne Collection at the British Museum is a volume
containing three manuscript dramas of Queen Elizabeth's time, and on
a fly-leaf is a list of fifty-eight plays, with this note at the foot,
in the handwriting of the well-known antiquary, Warburton:
"After I had been many years collecting these Manuscript Playes,
through my own carelessness and the ignorance of my servant,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: like blood spurting from an artery. Thus Moloch was in possession of
Carthage; he clasped the ramparts, he rolled through the streets, he
devoured the very corpses.
Men wearing cloaks made of collected rags in token of despair,
stationed themselves at the corners of the cross-ways. They declaimed
against the Ancients and against Hamilcar, predicted complete ruin to
the people, and invited them to universal destruction and license. The
most dangerous were the henbane-drinkers; in their crisis they
believed themselves wild beasts, and leaped upon the passers-by to
rend them. Mobs formed around them, and the defence of Carthage was
forgotten. The Suffet devised the payment of others to support his
Salammbo |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: and they made my life continuous, in a fashion, with the illustrious
life they had touched at the other end. I lost myself in this
satisfaction to the point of assuming--in my quiet extravagance--
that poor Miss Tita also went back, went back, as I used to phrase it.
She did indeed, the gentle spinster, but not quite so far as Jeffrey Aspern,
who was simply hearsay to her, quite as he was to me. Only she had
lived for years with Juliana, she had seen and handled the papers and
(even though she was stupid) some esoteric knowledge had rubbed off on her.
That was what the old woman represented--esoteric knowledge;
and this was the idea with which my editorial heart used to thrill.
It literally beat faster often, of an evening, when I had been out,
|
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 Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: Now, not far from where he lived, and beside the river, stood a
willow-tree, and thither the lucky beggar took his purse of money
and stuffed it into a knot-hole of a withered branch, then went
his way, certain that nobody would think of looking for money in
such a hiding-place. Then all the rest of the day he sat thinking
and thinking of the ways he would spend what had been given him,
and what he would do to get the most good out of it. At last came
evening, and his brother, who had been begging in another part of
the town, came home again.
"I nearly lost my hat to-day," said the second beggar so soon as
he had come into the house.
|
