| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: emeraude ronde que le favori de Cesar m'a envoyee. Si vous
regardiez e travers cette emeraude vous pourriez voir des choses qui
se passent e une distance immense. Cesar lui-meme en porte une tout
e fait pareille quand il va au cirque. Mais la mienne est plus
grande. Je sais bien qu'elle est plus grande. C'est la plus grande
emeraude du monde. N'est-ce pas que vous voulez cela? Demandez-moi
cela et je vous le donnerai.
SALOME. Je demande la tete d'Iokanaan.
HERODE. Vous ne m'ecoutez pas, vous ne m'ecoutez pas. Enfin,
laissez-moi parler, Salome.
SALOME. La tete d'Iokanaan.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: mother would only die. That lady seemed now in a fair way to
oblige him; after some dreadful mistake about a climate or a "cure"
she had suddenly collapsed on the return from abroad. Her
daughter, unsupported and alarmed, desiring to make a rush for home
but hesitating at the risk, had accepted our friend's assistance,
and it was my secret belief that at sight of him Mrs. Erme would
pull round. His own belief was scarcely to be called secret; it
discernibly at any rate differed from mine. He had showed me
Gwendolen's photograph with the remark that she wasn't pretty but
was awfully interesting; she had published at the age of nineteen a
novel in three volumes, "Deep Down," about which, in THE MIDDLE, he
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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 In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'Kaoha!' to the passers-by. The road, too, was busy: strings of
girls, fair and foul, as in less favoured countries; men bearing
breadfruit; the sisters, with a little guard of pupils; a fellow
bestriding a horse - passed and greeted us continually; and now it
was a Chinaman who came to the gate of his flower-yard, and gave us
'Good-day' in excellent English; and a little farther on it would
be some natives who set us down by the wayside, made us a feast of
mummy-apple, and entertained us as we ate with drumming on a tin
case. With all this fine plenty of men and fruit, death is at work
here also. The population, according to the highest estimate, does
not exceed six hundred in the whole vale of Atuona; and yet, when I
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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 Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: get rid of this body before dark."
Wilson staggered up menacingly to prevent the contemplated act,
but when his comrade, Spider, took sides with Clayton and
Monsieur Thuran he gave up, and sat eying the corpse
hungrily as the three men, by combining their efforts,
succeeded in rolling it overboard.
All the balance of the day Wilson sat glaring at Clayton,
in his eyes the gleam of insanity. Toward evening, as the
sun was sinking into the sea, he commenced to chuckle and
mumble to himself, but his eyes never left Clayton.
After it became quite dark Clayton could still feel those terrible
The Return of Tarzan |
