| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: concern the stranger. "What the devil can it mean? Messrs. Palma,
Werbrust & Co., wholesale dealers in muslins, calicoes, and printed
cotton goods, live there.--Stay, I have it: Longueville the deputy has
an interest in their house. Well, but so far as I know, Longueville
has but one son of two-and-thirty, who is not at all like our man, and
to whom he gave fifty thousand francs a year that he might marry a
minister's daughter; he wants to be made a peer like the rest of 'em.
--I never heard him mention this Maximilien. Has he a daughter? What
is this girl Clara? Besides, it is open to any adventurer to call
himself Longueville. But is not the house of Palma, Werbrust & Co.
half ruined by some speculation in Mexico or the Indies? I will clear
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: signatures and all, in a leaf out of the ledger:-
This is to certify that Uma, daughter of Fa'avao of Falesa, Island
of - , is illegally married to Mr. John Wiltshire for one week, and
Mr. John Wiltshire is at liberty to send her to hell when he
pleases.
JOHN BLACKAMOAR.
Chaplain to the hulks.
Extracted from the Register
by William T. Randall,
Master Mariner.
A nice paper to put in a girl's hand and see her hide away like
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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 Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact
that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an
artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply
the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an
amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no
further claim to be considered as an artist. Art is the most
intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am
inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that
the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may
seem to have created Individualism, must take cognisance of other
people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of
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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 Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: yet pierced for five miles, and it was still not forty years
since, with a tragic pertinacity, he had clambered to the poles
of the earth. The limitless mineral wealth of the Arctic and
Antarctic circles was still buried beneath vast accumulations of
immemorial ice, and the secret riches of the inner zones of the
crust were untapped and indeed unsuspected. The higher mountain
regions were known only to a sprinkling of guide-led climbers and
the frequenters of a few gaunt hotels, and the vast rainless
belts of land that lay across the continental masses, from Gobi
to Sahara and along the backbone of America, with their perfect
air, their daily baths of blazing sunshine, their nights of cool
The Last War: A World Set Free |
