| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: The memory of five absolutely happy years, her beauty, the candor of
her love, quickly effaced in her husband's mind the last vestiges of
an intolerable pain.
The day was Sunday,--a day on which there was no Bourse and no
business to be done. The reunited pair passed the whole day together,
getting farther into each other's hearts than they ever yet had done,
like two children who in a moment of fear, hold each other closely and
cling together, united by an instinct. There are in this life of two-
in-one completely happy days, the gift of chance, ephemeral flowers,
born neither of yesterday nor belonging to the morrow. Jules and
Clemence now enjoyed this day as though they forboded it to be the
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Which we, in our appointed work employed,
Have finished, happy in our mutual help
And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss
Ordained by thee; and this delicious place
For us too large, where thy abundance wants
Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground.
But thou hast promised from us two a race
To fill the earth, who shall with us extol
Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake,
And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.
This said unanimous, and other rites
Paradise Lost |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: ness as they rushed towards the corner, hurried past, and
merged their individuality again in a receding multitude that
was swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust.
"Go on! Go on!" cried the voices. "Way! Way!"
One man's hands pressed on the back of another. My
brother stood at the pony's head. Irresistibly attracted, he
advanced slowly, pace by pace, down the lane.
Edgware had been a scene of confusion, Chalk Farm a
riotous tumult, but this was a whole population in movement.
It is hard to imagine that host. It had no character of its own.
The figures poured out past the corner, and receded with their
War of the Worlds |
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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: knell as from a bell, and that this had the strongest effect on
him; and when the angel went away, he had received the
revelation. Sometimes again he held converse with the angel as
with a man, so as easily to understand his words. The later
authorities, however, . . . distinguish still other kinds. In
the Itgan (103) the following are enumerated: 1, revelations
with sound of bell, 2, by inspiration of the holy spirit in M.'s
heart, 3, by Gabriel in human form, 4, by God immediately, either
when awake (as in his journey to heaven) or in dream. . . . In
Almawahib alladuniya the kinds are thus given: 1, Dream, 2,
Inspiration of Gabriel in the Prophet's heart, 3, Gabriel taking
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