| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: never inquire into the causes of their ruin.
It is useless to note every tint of shadow by which the brilliant hues
of their honeymoon were overcast till they were lost in utter
blackness. One evening poor Augustine, who had for some time heard her
husband speak with enthusiasm of the Duchesse de Carigliano, received
from a friend certain malignantly charitable warnings as to the nature
of the attachment which Sommervieux had formed for this celebrated
flirt of the Imperial Court. At one-and-twenty, in all the splendor of
youth and beauty, Augustine saw herself deserted for a woman of
six-and-thirty. Feeling herself so wretched in the midst of a world of
festivity which to her was a blank, the poor little thing could no
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: welcome to my house, which is a queer, rude place for certain,
but one where I have entertained a royal personage, Mr. Stewart
-- ye doubtless ken the personage I have in my eye. We'll take a
dram for luck, and as soon as this handless man of mine has the
collops ready, we'll dine and take a hand at the cartes as
gentlemen should. My life is a bit driegh," says he, pouring out
the brandy;" I see little company, and sit and twirl my thumbs,
and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another
great day that we all hope will be upon the road. And so here's
a toast to ye: The Restoration!"
Thereupon we all touched glasses and drank. I am sure I wished
Kidnapped |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: the lover, according to the custom which prevails in our part of the world.
From this point of view a man fairly argues that in Athens to love and to
be loved is held to be a very honourable thing. But when parents forbid
their sons to talk with their lovers, and place them under a tutor's care,
who is appointed to see to these things, and their companions and equals
cast in their teeth anything of the sort which they may observe, and their
elders refuse to silence the reprovers and do not rebuke them--any one who
reflects on all this will, on the contrary, think that we hold these
practices to be most disgraceful. But, as I was saying at first, the truth
as I imagine is, that whether such practices are honourable or whether they
are dishonourable is not a simple question; they are honourable to him who
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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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: straight away from Middelburg to try and trade some of it. It was a
risky thing to go into the country so early, on account of the fever;
but I knew that there were one or two others after that lot of ivory, so
I determined to have a try for it, and take my chance of fever. I had
become so tough from continual knocking about that I did not set it down
at much.
"Well, I got on all right for a while. It is a wonderfully beautiful
piece of bush veldt, with great ranges of mountains running through it,
and round granite koppies starting up here and there, looking out like
sentinels over the rolling waste of bush. But it is very hot--hot as a
stew-pan--and when I was there that March, which, of course, is autumn
Long Odds |
