| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: along the gunwale of the canoe, while a quiverful of arrows hung on
each man's back. The eyes of the man-hunters missed nothing. They
had seen Sheldon and Joan first, but they gave no sign. Where
Gogoomy and his followers had emerged from the river, the canoe
abruptly stopped, then turned and disappeared into the deeper
mangrove gloom. A second and a third canoe came around the bend
from below, glided ghostlike to the crossing of the runaways, and
vanished in the mangroves.
"I hope there won't be any more killing," Joan said, as they turned
their horses homeward.
"I don't think so," Sheldon assured her. "My understanding with
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: all are a little true?" And he took the pebble, and turned its
light upon the heavens, and they deepened about him like the pit;
and he turned it on the hills, and the hills were cold and rugged,
but life ran in their sides so that his own life bounded; and he
turned it on the dust, and he beheld the dust with joy and terror;
and he turned it on himself, and kneeled down and prayed.
"Now, thanks be to God," said the elder son, "I have found the
touchstone; and now I may turn my reins, and ride home to the King
and to the maid of the dun that makes my mouth to sing and my heart
enlarge."
Now when he came to the dun, he saw children playing by the gate
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: with a top-hat and a well-cut light-coloured overcoat. On the
seat in front sat their children--a well-dressed little girl,
with loose, fair hair, and as fresh as a flower, who also held a
bright parasol, and an eight-year-old boy, with a long, thin neck
and sharp collarbones, a sailor hat with long ribbons on his
head.
The father was angrily scolding the coachman because he had not
passed in front of the gang when he had a chance, and the mother
frowned and half closed her eyes with a look of disgust,
shielding herself from the dust and the sun with her silk
sunshade, which she held close to her face.
Resurrection |
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 The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: "Eleven o'clock, midnight, one o'clock. . . . I did not sleep. I
did not go to my chamber. It is stupid to lie stretched out all
alone, and to wait. But in my study I did not rest. I tried to
busy myself, to write letters, to read. Impossible! I was
alone, tortured, wicked, and I listened. Toward daylight I went
to sleep. I awoke. She had not returned. Everything in the
house went on as usual, and all looked at me in astonishment,
questioningly. The children's eyes were full of reproach for me.
And always the same feeling of anxiety about her, and of hatred
because of this anxiety.
"Toward eleven o'clock in the morning came her sister, her
The Kreutzer Sonata |
