| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: reached its culmination in the seventh century, the age of Justinian and
Theodora, perhaps the two most hideous sovereigns, worshipped by the
most hideous empire of parasites and hypocrites, cowards and wantons,
that ever insulted the long-suffering of a righteous God.
But, for Alexandria at least, the cup was now full. In the year 640 the
Alexandrians were tearing each other in pieces about some Jacobite and
Melchite controversy, to me incomprehensible, to you unimportant,
because the fighters on both sides seem to have lost (as all parties do
in their old age) the knowledge of what they were fighting for, and to
have so bewildered the question with personal intrigues, spites, and
quarrels, as to make it nearly as enigmatic as that famous contemporary
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: and at once climbs home again by the same road, with her prize
dangling at her heels by a thread. The final sacrifice will take
place in the quiet of the leafy sanctuary.
A few days later, I renew my experiment under the same conditions,
but, this time, I first cut the signalling-thread. In vain I
select a large Dragon-fly, a very restless prisoner; in vain I
exert my patience: the Spider does not come down all day. Her
telegraph being broken, she receives no notice of what is happening
nine feet below. The entangled morsel remains where it lies, not
despised, but unknown. At nightfall, the Epeira leaves her cabin,
passes over the ruins of her web, finds the Dragon-fly and eats her
The Life of the Spider |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: touching expression, her freshness and purity, prevented Birotteau
from thinking of her defects, which moreover were more than
compensated by a delicate sense of honor natural to women, by an
excessive love of order, by a fanaticism for work, and by her genius
as a saleswoman. Constance was eighteen years old, and possessed
eleven thousand francs of her own. Cesar, inspired by his love with an
excessive ambition, bought the business of "The Queen of Roses" and
removed it to a handsome building near the Place Vendome. At the early
age of twenty-one, married to a woman he adored, the proprietor of an
establishment for which he had paid three quarters of the price down,
he had the right to view, and did view, the future in glowing colors;
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
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 Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: Or any good but death, befall
Him that is thrall unto Time's thrall,
Slave to the lesser of these Kings?
O heart of youth that wakes and sings!
O golden vows and golden rings!
Life mocks you with the tale of all
Time steals from Love!
O riven lute and writhen strings,
Dead bough whereto no blossom clings,
The glory was ephemeral!
Nor may our Autumn grief recall
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