| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: "You must let me have it just as it is, entire, for my new book," said
Dennis firmly. "I shall give it a whole chapter."
"Oh, Isabel," moaned Moira, "that wonderful bit about holding you in his
arms!"
"I always thought those letters in divorce cases were made up. But they
pale before this."
"Let me hold it. Let me read it, mine own self," said Bobby Kane.
But, to their surprise, Isabel crushed the letter in her hand. She was
laughing no longer. She glanced quickly at them all; she looked exhausted.
"No, not just now. Not just now," she stammered.
And before they could recover she had run into the house, through the hall,
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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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: "You're tired again," said Charlotte reproachfully, and she stopped the
rocker and offered her warm plum-like cheek. Bright-haired Ethel pecked
his beard, Marion's lips brushed his ear.
"Did you walk back, father?" asked Charlotte.
"Yes, I walked home," said old Mr. Neave, and he sank into one of the
immense drawing-room chairs.
"But why didn't you take a cab?" said Ethel. "There are hundred of cabs
about at that time."
"My dear Ethel," cried Marion, "if father prefers to tire himself out, I
really don't see what business of ours it is to interfere."
"Children, children?" coaxed Charlotte.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: colorists" - Palma Vecchio, which hangs on the left-hand side of
Lord Ellesmere's great gallery. But as for the forms, - where
shall we see their like? Where, amid miniature forests as
fantastic as those of the tropics, animals whose shapes outvie the
wildest dreams of the old German ghost painters which cover the
walls of the galleries of Brussels or Antwerp? And yet the
uncouthest has some quaint beauty of its own, while most - the
star-fishes and anemones, for example - are nothing but beauty.
The brilliant plates in Mr. Gosse's "Aquarium" give, after all, but
a meagre picture of the reality, as it may be seen in the tank-
house at the Zoological Gardens; and as it may be seen also, by
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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 McTeague by Frank Norris: Trina forward.
"Say, Mac, this is my cousin, Trina Sieppe." The two shook
hands dumbly, McTeague slowly nodding his huge head with its
great shock of yellow hair. Trina was very small and
prettily made. Her face was round and rather pale; her eyes
long and narrow and blue, like the half-open eyes of a
little baby; her lips and the lobes of her tiny ears
were pale, a little suggestive of anaemia; while across the
bridge of her nose ran an adorable little line of freckles.
But it was to her hair that one's attention was most
attracted. Heaps and heaps of blue-black coils and braids,
McTeague |
