| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: Carley, with a laugh.
She saw him gaze thoughtfully into the glowing embers of the fire, and as
she watched him her quick intuition grasped a subtle change in his mood. It
brought a sternness to his face. She could hardly realize she was looking
at the Glenn Kilbourne of old.
"Come close to the fire," he said, and pulled up a chair for her. Then he
threw more wood upon the red coals. "You must be careful not to catch cold
out here. The altitude makes a cold dangerous. And that gown is no
protection."
"Glenn, one chair used to be enough for us," she said, archly, standing
beside him.
The Call of the Canyon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: wetted with rain; except of course in the Scottish Highlands, where
there are not enough fine intervals to point the difference. That
was like to be our case, the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing
of the voyage; it was nothing but clay banks and willows, and rain;
incessant, pitiless, beating rain; until we stopped to lunch at a
little inn at Pimprez, where the canal ran very near the river. We
were so sadly drenched that the landlady lit a few sticks in the
chimney for our comfort; there we sat in a steam of vapour,
lamenting our concerns. The husband donned a game-bag and strode
out to shoot; the wife sat in a far corner watching us. I think we
were worth looking at. We grumbled over the misfortune of La Fere;
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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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: short, man has, and has had, but one religion.
"Sivaism, Vishnuism, and Brahmanism, the three primitive creeds,
originating as they did in Thibet, in the valley of the Indus, and
on the vast plains of the Ganges, ended their warfare some
thousand years before the birth of Christ by adopting the Hindoo
Trimourti. The Trimourti is our Trinity. From this dogma Magianism
arose in Persia; in Egypt, the African beliefs and the Mosaic law;
the worship of the Cabiri, and the polytheism of Greece and Rome.
While by this ramification of the Trimourti the Asiatic myths
became adapted to the imaginations of various races in the lands
they reached by the agency of certain sages whom men elevated to
Louis Lambert |
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 Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burned in heart-wish'd luxury,
He preach'd pure maid and prais'd cold chastity.
'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd,
That the unexperienc'd gave the tempter place,
Which, like a cherubin, above them hover'd.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?
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