| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: by your master."
"Do you not think the Virgin beautiful?" asked she of him, smiling
when he held the illuminated prayer-book in which glowed the silver
and gold.
"It is a painting," replied he, timidly, and casting a little glance
upon his so gracious mistress.
"Read! read!"
Then Rene began to recite the so sweet and so mystic litanies; but you
may imagine that the "Ora pro nobis" of Blanche became still fainter
and fainter, like the sound of the horn in the woodlands, and when the
page went on, "Oh, Rose of mystery," the lady, who certainly heard
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: degraded man. In that one act he retrieved himself,
and when he is called to face his Maker may it outweigh
in the balance, all the sins he has committed."
And Jane Clayton breathed a fervent, "Amen!"
Months had passed. The labor of the Waziri and the
gold of Opar had rebuilt and refurnished the wasted
homestead of the Greystokes. Once more the simple life
of the great African farm went on as it had before the
coming of the Belgian and the Arab. Forgotten were the
sorrows and dangers of yesterday.
For the first time in months Lord Greystoke felt that
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: one desire, to be rid of the slaves who consumed the water, and as
they believed, had bred the pestilence. So I said such prayers as
came into my head, and although with a great shivering of fear, for
the poor flesh shrinks from its end and the unknown beyond it,
however high may be the spirit, I prepared myself to die.
Now, having dragged away my neighbour in misery, the living savage,
the men turned to me. They were naked to the middle, and worked
furiously to be done with their hateful task, sweating with the
heat, and keeping themselves from fainting by draughts of spirit.
'This one is alive also and does not seem so sick,' said a man as
he struck the fetters from me.
Montezuma's Daughter |
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 An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: voice, "no one is more guiltless than I of the blood shed----"
"I am bound to believe you," said the priest. He paused a moment, and
again he scrutinized his penitent. But, persisting in the idea that
the man before him was one of the members of the Convention, one of
the voters who betrayed an inviolable and anointed head to save their
own, he began again gravely:
"Remember, my son, that it is not enough to have taken no active part
in the great crime; that fact does not absolve you. The men who might
have defended the King and left their swords in their scabbards, will
have a very heavy account to render to the King of Heaven--Ah! yes,"
he added, with an eloquent shake of the head, "heavy indeed!--for by
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