| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: for the sun set in the east only an hour and a half ago.
Would that those clouds would disclose what enormous luminary lies
behind them! What a fool I was not to have learnt more astronomy!
Perhaps, after all, I am racking my brain over something that is
quite in the ordinary course of nature."
But, reason as he might, the mysteries of the heavens still
remained impenetrable. For about an hour some luminous body,
its disc evidently of gigantic dimensions, shed its rays upon
the upper strata of the clouds; then, marvelous to relate,
instead of obeying the ordinary laws of celestial mechanism,
and descending upon the opposite horizon, it seemed to retreat
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: fancied, well-directed, for almost after each they heard "Krak,
Krak, apporte!"
This excited Levin still more. The snipe were floating
continually in the air over the reeds. Their whirring wings close
to the earth, and their harsh cries high in the air, could be
heard on all sides; the snipe that had risen first and flown up
into the air, settled again before the sportsmen. Instead of two
hawks there were now dozens of them hovering with shrill cries
over the marsh.
After walking through the larger half of the marsh, Levin and
Veslovsky reached the place where the peasants' mowing-grass was
Anna Karenina |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: weave their robes of sea purple--very curious to see--and at all
times there is water within it. It has two entrances, one facing
North by which mortals can go down into the cave, while the
other comes from the South and is more mysterious; mortals
cannot possibly get in by it, it is the way taken by the gods.
Into this harbour, then, they took their ship, for they knew the
place. {114} She had so much way upon her that she ran half her
own length on to the shore; {115} when, however, they had
landed, the first thing they did was to lift Ulysses with his
rug and linen sheet out of the ship, and lay him down upon the
sand still fast asleep. Then they took out the presents which
The Odyssey |
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 Daisy Miller by Henry James: in particular, the various hotels at which they had stopped.
"That English lady in the cars," she said--"Miss Featherstone--
asked me if we didn't all live in hotels in America.
I told her I had never been in so many hotels in my life as since I
came to Europe. I have never seen so many--it's nothing but hotels."
But Miss Miller did not make this remark with a querulous accent;
she appeared to be in the best humor with everything.
She declared that the hotels were very good, when once you
got used to their ways, and that Europe was perfectly sweet.
She was not disappointed--not a bit. Perhaps it was because
she had heard so much about it before. She had ever so many
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