| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: contrary, he believed that the time was already come for him to die.
That such was the conclusion to which he had come was made still more
evident later when the case had been decided against him. In the first
place, when called upon to suggest a counter-penalty,[42] he would
neither do so himself nor suffer his friends to do so for him, but
went so far as to say that to propose a counter-penalty was like a
confession of guilt. And afterwards, when his companions wished to
steal him out of prison,[43] he would not follow their lead, but would
seem to have treated the idea as a jest, by asking "whether they
happened to know of some place outside Attica where death was
forbidden to set foot?"
The Apology |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: her feet in the street, a man of intelligence in such studies can
divine the secret of her mysterious errand. There is something, I know
not what, of quivering buoyancy in the person, in the gait; the woman
seems to weigh less; she steps, or rather, she glides like a star, and
floats onward led by a thought which exhales from the folds and motion
of her dress. The young man hastened his step, passed the woman, and
then turned back to look at her. Pst! she had disappeared into a
passage-way, the grated door of which and its bell still rattled and
sounded. The young man walked back to the alley and saw the woman
reach the farther end, where she began to mount--not without receiving
the obsequious bow of an old portress--a winding staircase, the lower
Ferragus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: and cuts and slashes almost on every side: it covered a taffety
vest, so greasy as to testify that his honour must be a most
exquisite sloven. His horse was a poor, starved, hobbling
creature, and two slaves followed him on foot to drive the poor
creature along; he had a whip in his hand, and he belaboured the
beast as fast about the head as his slaves did about the tail; and
thus he rode by us, with about ten or twelve servants, going from
the city to his country seat, about half a league before us. We
travelled on gently, but this figure of a gentleman rode away
before us; and as we stopped at a village about an hour to refresh
us, when we came by the country seat of this great man, we saw him
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: a ruse to keep them inactive until the boy was safely hidden
away or spirited out of England. Or it might be that it had
been simply a bait to lure Tarzan into the hands of the
implacable Rokoff.
With the lodgment of this thought she stopped in wide-
eyed terror. Instantly it became a conviction. She glanced at
the great clock ticking the minutes in the corner of the library.
It was too late to catch the Dover train that Tarzan was to take.
There was another, later, however, that would bring her to
the Channel port in time to reach the address the stranger
had given her husband before the appointed hour.
The Beasts of Tarzan |
