| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: "Yes, but several days later."
"And you hired it in the name of Miss Asta Langen? Who would then
have been found dead here several days after you had entered the
house?"
"Several days, several weeks perhaps. I preferred to wait until
the woman who rented the house had read in the papers that Asta
Langen had disappeared and was being sought for. Somebody would
have found her here, and her identity would have easily been
established, for I knew that she had some important family documents
with her."
Muller was silent a moment, with an expression of deep pity on his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: This homage was repeated by Vitellius, Antipas, and the priests.
But now, beginning at the farthest end of the banqueting-hall, a
murmur of surprise and admiration swept through the multitude. A
beautiful young girl had just entered the apartment, and stood
motionless for an instant, while all eyes were turned upon her.
Through a drapery of filmy blue gauze that veiled her head and throat,
her arched eyebrows, tiny ears, and ivory-white skin could be
distinguished. A scarf of shot-silk fell from her shoulders, and was
caught up at the waist by a girdle of fretted silver. Her full
trousers, of black silk, were embroidered in a pattern of silver
mandragoras, and as she moved forward with indolent grace, her little
Herodias |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: man's neighbour whispered in return, 'His shoulders are
broad; will you rise and put him out?' So they all sat still
where they were.
Then Theseus called to the servants, and said, 'Go tell King
AEgeus, your master, that Theseus of Troezene is here, and
asks to be his guest awhile.'
A servant ran and told AEgeus, where he sat in his chamber
within, by Medeia the dark witch-woman, watching her eye and
hand. And when AEgeus heard of Troezene he turned pale and
red again, and rose from his seat trembling, while Medeia
watched him like a snake.
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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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: dream, but may be a right and true instinct of the human mind. I mean
the belief that the things which we see--nature and all her phenomena--
are temporal, and born only to die; mere shadows of some unseen
realities, from whom their laws and life are derived; while the eternal
things which subsist without growth, decay, or change, the only real,
only truly existing things, in short, are certain things which are not
seen; inappreciable by sense, or understanding, or imagination,
perceived only by the conscience and the reason. And that, again, the
problem of philosophy, the highest good for man, that for the sake of
which death were a gain, without which life is worthless, a drudgery, a
degradation, a failure, and a ruin, is to discover what those unseen
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