| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: seals to play on, there was always the smoke of a whaler on the
horizon, boiling down blubber, and Kotick knew what that meant.
Or else he could see that seals had once visited the island and
been killed off, and Kotick knew that where men had come once they
would come again.
He picked up with an old stumpy-tailed albatross, who told him
that Kerguelen Island was the very place for peace and quiet, and
when Kotick went down there he was all but smashed to pieces
against some wicked black cliffs in a heavy sleet-storm with
lightning and thunder. Yet as he pulled out against the gale he
could see that even there had once been a seal nursery. And it
The Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: creatures scuttle into the bushes upon the slope; but I saw nothing
of these as we drew nearer. This man was of a moderate size,
and with a black negroid face. He had a large, almost lipless,
mouth, extraordinary lank arms, long thin feet, and bow-legs,
and stood with his heavy face thrust forward staring at us.
He was dressed like Montgomery and his white-haired companion,
in jacket and trousers of blue serge. As we came still nearer,
this individual began to run to and fro on the beach, making the most
grotesque movements.
At a word of command from Montgomery, the four men in the launch
sprang up, and with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs.
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: colossal and the diminutive. There is no happy human mean. Of the
first kind are the beautiful bronze figures of the Buddha, like the
Kamakura Buddha, fifty feet high and ninety-seven feet round, in
whose face all that is grand and noble lies sleeping, the living
representation of Nirvana; and of the second, those odd little
ornaments known as netsuke, comical carvings for the most part,
grotesque figures of men and monkeys, saints and sinners, gods and
devils. Appealing bits of ivory, bone, or wood they are, in which
the dumb animals are as speaking likenesses as their human fellows.
The other arts show the same motif in their decorations. Pottery
and lacquer alike witness the respective positions assigned to the
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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 A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: stockings, gave Madame Moreau all the appearance of an elegant
Parisian. She wore, also, a superb bonnet of Leghorn straw, trimmed
with a bunch of moss roses from Nattier's, beneath the spreading sides
of which rippled the curls of her beautiful blond hair.
After ordering a very choice dinner and reviewing the condition of her
rooms, she walked about the grounds, so as to be seen standing near a
flower-bed in the court-yard of the chateau, like the mistress of the
house, on the arrival of the coach from Paris. She held above her head
a charming rose-colored parasol lined with white silk and fringed.
Seeing that Pierrotin merely left Mistigris's queer packages with the
concierge, having, apparently, brought no passengers, Estelle retired
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