| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: deserves a statue. To call her a young lady, with all its niminy
associations, would be to offer her an insult. She may rest
assured of one thing: although she never should marry a heroic
general, never see any great or immediate result of her life, she
will not have lived in vain for her native land.
But though French soldiers show to ill advantage on parade, on the
march they are gay, alert, and willing like a troop of fox-hunters.
I remember once seeing a company pass through the forest of
Fontainebleau, on the Chailly road, between the Bas Breau and the
Reine Blanche. One fellow walked a little before the rest, and
sang a loud, audacious marching song. The rest bestirred their
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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 Octopus by Frank Norris: together at THIS spot, understand. I'll be back in a minute. I
must tell Hilma this."
Hooven ran up as Annixter disappeared. His little eyes were
blazing, he was dragging his horse with him.
"Say, dose fellers come, hey? Me, I'm alretty, see I hev der
guhn."
"They've jumped the ranch, little girl," said Annixter, putting
one arm around Hilma. "They're in our house now. I'm off. Go
to Derrick's and wait for me there."
She put her arms around his neck.
"You're going?" she demanded.
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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 Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: of the metal-purveyors, fronting on the third square not far from
the archives. What had happened to it I could not conjecture.
I found the corridor again beyond the mountain of detritus and
stone, but after a short distance encountered a wholly choked
place where the fallen vaulting almost touched the perilously
sagging ceiling. How I managed to wrench and tear aside enough
blocks to afford a passage, and how I dared disturb the tightly
packed fragments when the least shift of equilibrium might have
brought down all the tons of superincumbent masonry to crush me
to nothingness, I do not know.
It was sheer madness that impelled
Shadow out of Time |
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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Agleam on high with rosy lampion,
Possesses about him with invisible heats
A plenteous fire, by no effulgence marked,
So that he maketh, he, the Fraught-with-fire,
Increase to such degree the force of rays.
Nor is there one sure cause revealed to men
How the sun journeys from his summer haunts
On to the mid-most winter turning-points
In Capricorn, the thence reverting veers
Back to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor
How 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross
Of The Nature of Things |
