| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: unflagging; there is upon the whole no better life. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[HONOLULU, APRIL 1889.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - This is to announce the most prodigious
change of programme. I have seen so much of the South Seas that I
desire to see more, and I get so much health here that I dread a
return to our vile climates. I have applied accordingly to the
missionary folk to let me go round in the MORNING STAR; and if the
Boston Board should refuse, I shall get somehow to Fiji, hire a
trading schooner, and see the Fijis and Friendlies and Samoa. He
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon
all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing
radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours
I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I
should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact
character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he
involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly
distempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His
long improvised dirges will ring for ever in my ears. Among
other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Pleiads and Hyads, and Lycaon's child
Bright Arctos; how with nooses then was found
To catch wild beasts, and cozen them with lime,
And hem with hounds the mighty forest-glades.
Soon one with hand-net scourges the broad stream,
Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils
Along the main; then iron's unbending might,
And shrieking saw-blade,- for the men of old
With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;-
Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all,
Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push
Georgics |
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 Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: a daughter, Ethel, and an unmarried sister, Miss Julia
Esterbrook. All three were fond of talking, and had many callers
who liked to hear the feebly effervescent news of Wellwood. This
afternoon three ladies were there: Miss Abby Simson, Mrs. John
Bates, and Mrs. Edward Lee. They sat in the Glynn sitting-room,
which shrilled with treble voices as if a flock of sparrows had
settled therein.
The Glynn sitting-room was charming, mainly because of the
quantity of flowering plants. Every window was filled with them,
until the room seemed like a conservatory. Ivy, too, climbed
over the pictures, and the mantel-shelf was a cascade of
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