| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: stared at him in wonder.
'But where, and how, and when did you come by it?' cried the
other.
'Look at the face,' was the only answer.
Fettes was staggered; strange doubts assailed him. He looked
from the young doctor to the body, and then back again. At
last, with a start, he did as he was bidden. He had almost
expected the sight that met his eyes, and yet the shock was
cruel. To see, fixed in the rigidity of death and naked on
that coarse layer of sackcloth, the man whom he had left well
clad and full of meat and sin upon the threshold of a tavern,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: "Your name, monsieur?"
Almost had Andre-Louis answered him when he remembered Le Chapelier's
warning of the danger with which his mission was fraught, and Le
Chapelier's parting admonition to conceal his identity.
"My name is unknown to him; it matters nothing; I am the mouthpiece
of a people, no more. Go."
The usher went, and in the shadow of that lofty, pillared portico
Andre-Louis waited, his eyes straying out ever and anon to survey
that spread of upturned faces immediately below him.
Soon the president came, others following, crowding out into the
portico, jostling one another in their eagerness to hear the news.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: to the same position; the murmur of the stream and the hissing of
the pebbles underfoot in the rapids as the swift water rolled them
over and over; the odour of the fir-trees, and the streaks of warm
air in quiet places, and the faint whiffs of wood-smoke wafted from
the houses, and the brown flies dancing heavily up and down in the
twilight; the last good pool, where the river was divided, the main
part making a deep, narrow curve to the right, and the lesser part
bubbling into it over a bed of stones with half-a-dozen tiny
waterfalls, with a fine trout lying at the foot of each of them and
rising merrily as the white fly passed over him--surely it was all
very good, and a memory to be grateful for. And when the basket
|
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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: beauty I can but feebly echo, think of what was the scene which
presented itself, in his afternoon walk, to a designer of the
Gothic school of Pisa - Nino Pisano or any of his men (22):
On each side of a bright river he saw rise a line of brighter
palaces, arched and pillared, and inlaid with deep red porphyry,
and with serpentine; along the quays before their gates were riding
troops of knights, noble in face and form, dazzling in crest and
shield; horse and man one labyrinth of quaint colour and gleaming
light - the purple, and silver, and scarlet fringes flowing over
the strong limbs and clashing mall, like sea-waves over rocks at
sunset. Opening on each side from the river were gardens, courts,
|
