| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: to your wife now, and go to the frontier; you will be accompanied by
an escort of honor. As for your instructions and credentials, they
will be in Venice before you get there."
Louis then gave the order--not without adding certain secret
instructions--to a lieutenant of the Scottish guard to take a squad of
men and accompany the ambassador to Venice. Saint-Vallier departed in
haste, after giving his wife a cold kiss which he would fain have made
deadly. Louis XI. then crossed over to the Malemaison, eager to begin
the unravelling of the melancholy comedy, lasting now for eight years,
in the house of his silversmith; flattering himself that, in his
quality of king, he had enough penetration to discover the secret of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: opening before a lad of seventeen years of age, the son of a poor
country dominie in the Forest of Ettrick.
"Mr. Campbell," I stammered, "and if you were in my shoes, would
you go?"
"Of a surety," said the minister, "that would I, and without
pause. A pretty lad like you should get to Cramond (which is
near in by Edinburgh) in two days of walk. If the worst came to
the worst, and your high relations (as I cannot but suppose them
to be somewhat of your blood) should put you to the door, ye can
but walk the two days back again and risp at the manse door. But
I would rather hope that ye shall be well received, as your poor
Kidnapped |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: at sea; or, secondly, by transposing the letters of the alphabet
in any suspected paper, they can lay open the deepest designs of
a discontented party. So, for example, if I should say, in a
letter to a friend, 'Our brother Tom has just got the piles,' a
skilful decipherer would discover, that the same letters which
compose that sentence, may be analysed into the following words,
'Resist--, a plot is brought home--The tour.' And this is the
anagrammatic method."
The professor made me great acknowledgments for communicating
these observations, and promised to make honourable mention of me
in his treatise.
Gulliver's Travels |
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 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
