| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: spirit of the great warriors of art,--invincible powers, not misled by
will-o'-the-wisps, but advancing always until they force Nature to lie
bare in her divine integrity. That was Raphael's method," said the old
man, lifting his velvet cap in homage to the sovereign of art; "his
superiority came from the inward essence which seems to break from the
inner to the outer of his figures. Form with him was what it is with
us,--a medium by which to communicate ideas, sensations, feelings; in
short, the infinite poesy of being. Every figure is a world; a
portrait, whose original stands forth like a sublime vision, colored
with the rainbow tints of light, drawn by the monitions of an inward
voice, laid bare by a divine finger which points to the past of its
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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 Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: good as betrothed to another. He was very courteous about it; but
at the same time he gave me to understand that he was accustomed
to getting what he wanted and that he wanted you very much. I
suppose it will mean another war. Your mother's beauty kept
Helium at war for many years, and--well, Tara of Helium, if I
were a young man I should doubtless be willing to set all Barsoom
afire to win you, as I still would to keep your divine mother,"
and he smiled across the sorapus table and its golden service at
the undimmed beauty of Mars' most beautiful woman.
"Our little girl should not yet be troubled with such matters,"
said Dejah Thoris. "Remember, John Carter, that you are not
The Chessmen of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: the world for jugglers and magicians and singers and players and
storytellers (that's how I met him) and musicians. He ate too much,
drank too much, and danced and played and watched and traveled and
did too much and basically engaged in a constant frenzy of activity
from morning to night, from January to December, from the beginning
of the decade to its end. And the result was that he was amused for
awhile, but was mostly fat and tired and sometimes drunk and often
disoriented, but still not happy.
"Perhaps your majesty would be happy if he ruled the surrounding
lands and felt secure from attack," suggested the head of his army.
"For the proverb says, 'In security lies happiness.'" So his
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: of his holy robes, and stood a few moments as if in inward prayer.
A deep silence among the attendant crowd accompanied this action
of the friar; interrupted only by the hollow tone of the death-bell,
at long and dreary intervals. Suddenly the friar threw off
his holy robes, and appeared a forester clothed in green,
with a sword in his right hand and a horn in his left.
With the sword he cut the bonds of William Gamwell, who instantly
snatched a sword from one of the sheriff's men; and with the horn
he blew a loud blast, which was answered at once by four bugles
from the quarters of the four winds, and from each quarter came
five-and-twenty bowmen running all on a row.
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