| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: draws to a conclusion, when the windows begin to be darkened, when
the bond of the family is to be loosed, there shall be no
bitterness of remorse in our farewells.
Help us to look back on the long way that Thou hast brought us, on
the long days in which we have been served, not according to our
deserts, but our desires; on the pit and the miry clay, the
blackness of despair, the horror of misconduct, from which our feet
have been plucked out. For our sins forgiven or prevented, for our
shame unpublished, we bless and thank Thee, O God. Help us yet
again and ever. So order events, so strengthen our frailty, as
that day by day we shall come before Thee with this song of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: good cause to weep, and I passed her without remark. But when I
was come into the room where he received his patients, I mentioned
that I had met such a person and asked if it was any one whom I
knew.
'Ah! nephew,' said Fonseca, who always called me thus by now, and
indeed began to treat me with as much affection as though I were
really of his blood, 'a sad case, but you do not know her and she
is no paying patient. A poor girl of noble birth who had entered
religion and taken her vows, when a gallant appears, meets her
secretly in the convent garden, promises to marry her if she will
fly with him, indeed does go through some mummery of marriage with
Montezuma's Daughter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: dots in the sky--and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon,
and then still more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled
with blue specks. Now they were all thin little strokes of blue,
and now one and now a multitude would heel and catch the sun
and become short flashes of light. They came rising and falling
and growing larger, like some huge flight of gulls or rooks,
or such-like birds moving with a marvellous uniformity, and ever
as they drew nearer they spread over a greater width of sky.
The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart
the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and
streamed eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and
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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 Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: maid-of-honor gown, which I considered might be blue to mach my
eyes, with large pink hat and carrying pink flours.
The next morning father and I breakfasted alone, and I said to him:
"In case of festivaty in the Familey, such as a Wedding, is my
Allowence to cover clothes and so on for it?"
He put down his paper and searched me with a peircing glanse.
Although pleasant after ten A. M. he is not realy paternal in the
early morning, and when Mademoiselle was still with us was quite
hateful to her at times, asking her to be good enough not to jabber
French at him untill evening when he felt stronger.
"Whose Wedding?" he said.
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