| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: memory."
"We forgot to send out cards; but I took care to send a special
message to M. le Presidente de Marville, the one relative that I
mentioned to you.--There are no friends.--M. Pons was conductor of an
orchestra at a theatre, but I do not think that any one will come.--
This gentleman is the universal legatee, I believe."
"Then he ought to be chief mourner," said the master of the
ceremonies.--"Have you a black coat?" he continued, noticing
Schmucke's costume.
"I am all in plack insite!" poor Schmucke replied in heartrending
tones; "so plack it is dot I feel death in me. . . . Gott in hefn is
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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 Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: and, as he said, went to look for flowers in the wood, and the
man, who could hear him shouting with delight at his
discoveries, felt no uneasiness. Suddenly, however, he was
horrified at hearing the most dreadful screams, evidently the
result of great terror, proceeding from the direction in which
his son had gone, and he hastily threw down his tools and ran
to see what had happened. Tracing his path by the sound, he
met the little boy, who was running headlong, and was evidently
terribly frightened, and on questioning him the man elicited
that after picking a posy of flowers he felt tired, and lay
down on the grass and fell asleep. He was suddenly awakened,
The Great God Pan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: And sent a deep sea-voice through all the land,
To which the little elves of chasm and cleft
Made answer, sounding like a distant horn.
So said my father--yea, and furthermore,
Next morning, while he past the dim-lit woods,
Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower,
That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes
When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed:
And still at evenings on before his horse
The flickering fairy-circle wheeled and broke
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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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: gardens. The pity of it! Youth should be like a wild rose. For myself I
do not understand how your women ever get married at all."
She shook her head so violently that I shook mine too, and a gloom settled
round my heart. It seemed we were really in a very bad way. Did the
spirit of romance spread her rose wings only over aristocratic Germany?
I went to my room, bound a pink scarf about my hair, and took a volume of
Morike's lyrics into the garden. A great bush of purple lilac grew behind
the summer-house. There I sat down, finding a sad significance in the
delicate suggestion of half mourning. I began to write a poem myself.
"They sway and languish dreamily,
And we, close pressed, are kissing there."
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