| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: first saw the light of day in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, Mr. Nutt
and Lord Archibald Campbell have been in public controversy
on the facts. Two clans, the Camerons and the Campbells, lay
claim to this bracing story; and they do well: the man who
preferred his plighted troth to the commands and menaces of
the dead is an ancestor worth disputing. But the Campbells
must rest content: they have the broad lands and the broad
page of history; this appanage must be denied them; for
between the name of CAMERON and that of CAMPBELL, the muse
will never hesitate.
Note 1, Mr. Nutt reminds me it was "by my sword and Ben
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.
CHAPTER XIV.
BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the
truck the gang had stole off of the wreck, and
found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all sorts of
other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and
three boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich
before in neither of our lives. The seegars was prime.
We laid off all the afternoon in the woods talking, and
me reading the books, and having a general good time.
I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: Seraphita passed her hand across her eyes and then she said,
smiling:--
"You are very thoughtful to-night, gentlemen. You treat Minna and me
as though we were men to whom you must talk politics or commerce;
whereas we are young girls, and you ought to tell us tales while you
drink your tea. That is what we do, Monsieur Wilfrid, in our long
Norwegian evenings. Come, dear pastor, tell me some Saga that I have
not heard,--that of Frithiof, the chronicle that you believe and have
so often promised me. Tell us the story of the peasant lad who owned
the ship that talked and had a soul. Come! I dream of the frigate
Ellida, the fairy with the sails young girls should navigate!"
Seraphita |
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 Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: And as soon as I make up my mind not to commit suicide, I have to
take up my regular life. I have to keep my engagements; I have
to get married."
"No," said the doctor.
"Yes, yes!" persisted George, with blind obstinacy. "Why,
Doctor, if I didn't marry it would be a disaster. You are
talking about something you don't understand. I, for my part--it
is not that I am anxious to be married. As I told you, I had
almost a second family. Lizette's little brothers adored me.
But it is my aunt, an old maid; and, also, my mother is crazy
about the idea. If I were to back out now, she would die of
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