| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: The publican drew a writing-tablet from the folds of his robe, counted
the horses, and recorded the number carefully.
It was the habit of the agents of the fiscal companies to corrupt the
governors in order to pillage the provinces. Sisenna was among the
most flourishing of these agents, and was seen everywhere with his
claw-like fingers and his eyelids continually blinking.
After a time the party returned to the court. Heavy, round bronze
lids, sunk in the stones of the pavement, covered the cisterns of the
palace. Vitellius noticed that one of these was larger than the
others, and that when struck by his foot it had not their sonority. He
struck them all, one after another; then stamped upon the ground and
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the
clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding
fainter and fainter, until they gradually died away, --and the
late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted.
Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country
lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress; fully convinced
that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this
interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know.
Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he
certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an
air quite desolate and chapfallen. Oh, these women! these women!
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: of us married, I sent her a little brass candlestick on her birthday;
and when mine followed a few months later, she sent me a note-book. No
notes were written in it, and on her next birthday I presented it to her;
she thanked me profusely in the customary manner, and when my turn came
I received the brass candlestick. Since then we alternately enjoy
the possession of each of these articles, and the present question is
comfortably settled once and for all, at a minimum of trouble and expense.
We never mention this little arrangement except at the proper time,
when we send a letter of fervid thanks.
This radiant weather, when mere living is a joy,
and sitting still over the fire out of the question, has been
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
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 First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: once to reconstruct his laboratory and proceed with our experiments. Cavor
talked more on my level than he had ever done before, when it came to the
question of how we should make the stuff next.
"Of course we must make it again," he said, with a sort of glee I had not
expected in him, "of course we must make it again. We have caught a
Tartar, perhaps, but we have left the theoretical behind us for good and
all. If we can possibly avoid wrecking this little planet of ours, we
will. But - there must be risks! There must be. In experimental work there
always are. And here, as a practical man, you must come in. For my own
part it seems to me we might make it edgeways, perhaps, and very thin. Yet
I don't know. I have a certain dim perception of another method. I can
The First Men In The Moon |
