| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: place in the saddle. They expend energy without receiving any
material sustenance.
The sons of the Clotho, the Labyrinth Spider and many others
confront us with the same riddle: they move, yet do not eat. At
any period of the nursery stage, even in the heart of winter, on
the bleak days of January, I tear the pockets of the one and the
tabernacle of the other, expecting to find the swarm of youngsters
lying in a state of complete inertia, numbed by the cold and by
lack of food. Well, the result is quite different. The instant
their cells are broken open, the anchorites run out and flee in
every direction as nimbly as at the best moments of their normal
The Life of the Spider |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: that sentence, but it was no good; it snapped in the middle, and the
fields, the sky, the sailing bird, the water, all said, "Isabel." The same
thing happened every Saturday afternoon. When he was on his way to meet
Isabel there began those countless imaginary meetings. She was at the
station, standing just a little apart from everybody else; she was sitting
in the open taxi outside; she was at the garden gate; walking across the
parched grass; at the door, or just inside the hall.
And her clear, light voice said, "It's William," or "Hillo, William!" or
"So William has come!" He touched her cool hand, her cool cheek.
The exquisite freshness of Isabel! When he had been a little boy, it was
his delight to run into the garden after a shower of rain and shake the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: early that morning to the Three Hills. Having waited there for
Rostopchin who did not turn up, they became convinced that Moscow
would be surrendered, and then dispersed all about the town to the
public houses and cookshops. Prices too that day indicated the state
of affairs. The price of weapons, of gold, of carts and horses, kept
rising, but the value of paper money and city articles kept falling,
so that by midday there were instances of carters removing valuable
goods, such as cloth, and receiving in payment a half of what they
carted, while peasant horses were fetching five hundred rubles each,
and furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were being given away for nothing.
In the Rostovs' staid old-fashioned house the dissolution of
War and Peace |
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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: strike all night long and it wasn't until nearly five o'clock,
when it was almost dawn, that I dozed off a bit."
"Then it is astonishing that you didn't hear anything!"
"Sure it's astonishing! But it's still more astonishing that my
dog Sultan didn't hear anything. Sultan is a famous watchdog, I'd
have you know. He'll growl if anybody passes through the street
after dark, and I don't see why he didn't notice what was going on
over there last night. If a man's attacked, he generally calls for
help; it's a queer business all right."
"Well, Sultan, why didn't you make a noise?" asked Muller, patting
the dog's broad head. Sultan growled and walked on indifferently,
|
