| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: freely with this interesting stranger. The night air
was cool and stimulating. The hills were black
under the sparks of white fire in the high arch of the
California sky. In the Presidio square were long
blue shadows that might have been reflections of
the smoldering blue beyond the stars. Rezanov
and Concha sat on the railing at the end of the
"corridor."
"It is a custom--all that very material admira-
tion?" he asked.
"A very old one, but not too often followed.
Rezanov |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: beneath the first chain, pressed it against his wound. The flesh was
seen to smoke; the hootings of the people drowned his voice; he was
standing again.
Six paces further on, and he fell a third and again a fourth time; but
some new torture always made him rise. They discharged little drops of
boiling oil through tubes at him; they strewed pieces of broken glass
beneath his feet; still he walked on. At the corner of the street of
Satheb he leaned his back against the wall beneath the pent-house of a
shop, and advanced no further.
The slaves of the Council struck him with their whips of hippopotamus
leather, so furiously and long that the fringes of their tunics were
Salammbo |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: their bosom. When the young maidens come from being examined by the clergyman,
or go to church to be confirmed, there he is again close behind them. Yes, he
is forever following people. At the play, he sits in the great chandelier and
burns in bright flames, so that people think it is really a flame, but they
soon discover it is something else. He roves about in the garden of the palace
and upon the ramparts: yes, once he even shot your father and mother right in
the heart. Ask them only and you will hear what they'll tell you. Oh, he is a
naughty boy, that Cupid; you must never have anything to do with him. He is
forever running after everybody. Only think, he shot an arrow once at your old
grandmother! But that is a long time ago, and it is all past now; however, a
thing of that sort she never forgets. Fie, naughty Cupid! But now you know
Fairy Tales |
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 Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: exploded in the cry:
"O Nume d'Israel,
Se brami in liberta
Il popol tuo fedel,
Di lui di noi pieta!"
(O God of Israel, if thou wouldst see thy faithful people free, have
mercy on them, and on us.)
"Never was a grander synthesis composed of natural effects or a more
perfect idealization of nature. In a great national disaster, each one
for a long time bewails himself alone; then, from out of the mass,
rises up, here and there, a more emphatic and vehement cry of anguish;
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