| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mayflower Compact: at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
Mr. Edward Winslow Thomas Williams
Mr. William Brewster Gilbert Winslow
Isaac Allerton Edmund Margesson
Miles Standish Peter Brown
John Alden Richard Bitteridge
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: convict, the soldier was obliged to stop, as the day had already
ended. In spite of the beauty of an Oriental sky at night, he felt he
had not strength enough to go on. Fortunately he had been able to find
a small hill, on the summit of which a few palm trees shot up into the
air; it was their verdure seen from afar which had brought hope and
consolation to his heart. His fatigue was so great that he lay down
upon a rock of granite, capriciously cut out like a camp-bed; there he
fell asleep without taking any precaution to defend himself while he
slept. He had made the sacrifice of his life. His last thought was one
of regret. He repented having left the Maugrabins, whose nomadic life
seemed to smile upon him now that he was far from them and without
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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 The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: the lips parted with a smile of cruel glee.
"Yes, when is that father of yours going to die?" asked the
seventh, throwing her bouquet at Don Juan with bewitching
playfulness. It was a childish girl who spoke, and the speaker
was wont to make sport of sacred things.
"Oh! don't talk about it," cried Don Juan, the young and handsome
giver of the banquet. "There is but one eternal father, and, as
ill luck will have it, he is mine."
The seven Ferrarese, Don Juan's friends, the Prince himself, gave
a cry of horror. Two hundred years later, in the days of Louis
XV., people of taste would have laughed at this witticism. Or was
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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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: an icy sweat flowing over them with their departing souls.
Nevertheless they had glimpses, at an infinite depth, of streets,
marching soldiers, and the swinging of swords; and the tumult of
battle reached them dimly like the noise of the sea to shipwrecked men
dying on the masts of a ship. The Italiotes, who were sturdier than
the rest, were still shrieking. The Lacedaemonians were silent, with
eyelids closed; Zarxas, once so vigorous, was bending like a broken
reed; the Ethiopian beside him had his head thrown back over the arms
of the cross; Autaritus was motionless, rolling his eyes; his great
head of hair, caught in a cleft in the wood, fell straight upon his
forehead, and his death-rattle seemed rather to be a roar of anger. As
Salammbo |
