| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: crumpled them a little, as a lover feels the hair of his mistress. The
fellow gloated over his treasure. He had had a dozen books in the course
of his life; now here was a mine of them opened at his feet. After a while
he began to read the titles, and now and again opened a book and read a
sentence; but he was too excited to catch the meanings distinctly. At last
he came to a dull, brown volume. He read the name, opened it in the
centre, and where he opened began to read. It was a chapter on property
that he fell upon--Communism, Fourierism, St. Simonism, in a work on
Political Economy. He read down one page and turned over to the next; he
read down that without changing his posture by an inch; he read the next,
and the next, kneeling up all the while with the book in his hand, and his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: skeleton, such as in the Sea-urchins covers the whole body of the
animal. (See on Echinus Millaris, p. 89.) (7) Somewhat similar
anchor-plates, from a Red Sea species, Synapta Vittata, may be seen
in any collection of microscopic objects.
The animal, when caught, has a strange habit of self-destruction,
contracting its skin at two or three different points, and writhing
till it snaps itself into "junks," as the sailors would say, and
then dies. My specimens, on breaking up, threw out from the
wounded part long "ovarian filaments" (whatsoever those may be),
similar to those thrown out by many of the Sagartian anemones,
especially S. parasitica. Beyond this, I can tell you nothing
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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 Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Lady Eleanore!--Princess!--Queen of Death!" cried Jervase
Helwyse, advancing three steps into the chamber. "She is not
here! There on yonder table, I behold the sparkle of a diamond
which once she wore upon her bosom. There"--and he
shuddered--"there hangs her mantle, on which a dead woman
embroidered a spell of dreadful potency. But where is the Lady
Eleanore?"
Something stirred within the silken curtains of a canopied bed;
and a low moan was uttered, which, listening intently, Jervase
Helwyse began to distinguish as a woman's voice, complaining
dolefully of thirst. He fancied, even, that he recognized its
Twice Told 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 1492 by Mary Johntson: The young man said, ``I will strive in no way to darken
them, senor.''
He might be a year or two the younger side of thirty.
The father, it was evident, had great pride in him, and
presently having sent him on some errand--sending him,
I thought, in order to be able to speak of him--told me that
he was very learned, a licentiate, having mastered law,
theology and philosophy. He himself would not return to
Hispaniola, but Bartolome wished to go. He sighed, ``I
do not know. Something makes me consent,'' and went
on to enlist Doctor Juan Lepe's care if in the island ever
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