| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: Well, said Eryximachus, before you appeared we had passed a resolution that
each one of us in turn should make a speech in praise of love, and as good
a one as he could: the turn was passed round from left to right; and as
all of us have spoken, and you have not spoken but have well drunken, you
ought to speak, and then impose upon Socrates any task which you please,
and he on his right hand neighbour, and so on.
That is good, Eryximachus, said Alcibiades; and yet the comparison of a
drunken man's speech with those of sober men is hardly fair; and I should
like to know, sweet friend, whether you really believe what Socrates was
just now saying; for I can assure you that the very reverse is the fact,
and that if I praise any one but himself in his presence, whether God or
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: sixty, is supposed to appear in the presence of her family
without a full coating of powder and paint. A lady one day
complained to me of difficulty in lifting her eyelids, and
consulted me as to the reason.
"Perhaps," said I, "they are partially paralyzed by the lead in
your cosmetics. Wash off the paint and see if the nerves do not
recover their tone."
"But," said she, "I would not dare appear in the presence of my
husband or family without paint and powder; it would not be
respectable."
The final touch to the face is the deep carmine spot on the lower
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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 The Underground City by Jules Verne: and their lamps. They went about searching, sounding the rock
with a sharp blow, listening if it would return a favor-able sound.
So long as the soundings had not been pushed to the granite of the
primary formation, the Fords were agreed that the search, unsuccessful
to-day, might succeed to-morrow, and that it ought to be resumed.
They spent their whole life in endeavoring to bring Aberfoyle back
to its former prosperity. If the father died before the hour of success,
the son was to go on with the task alone.
It was during these excursions that Harry was more particularly
struck by certain phenomena, which he vainly sought to explain.
Several times, while walking along some narrow cross-alley,
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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 The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: money was everything, the wall that stood between all he loathed
and all he wanted. The thing was winding itself up; he
had thought of that on his first glorious day in New York, and
had even provided a way to snap the thread. It lay on his
dressing table now; he had got it out last night when he came
blindly up from dinner, but the shiny metal hurt his eyes, and he
disliked the looks of it.
He rose and moved about with a painful effort, succumbing now and
again to attacks of nausea. It was the old depression exaggerated;
all the world had become Cordelia Street. Yet somehow he was not
afraid of anything, was absolutely calm; perhaps because he had
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
