| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: as a /feuilleton/, blithe as only those can be that are deep in debt
and drink deep to match, and finally--for here I come to my point--hot
lovers and what lovers! Picture to yourself Lovelace, and Henri
Quatre, and the Regent, and Werther, and Saint-Preux, and Rene, and
the Marechal de Richelieu--think of all these in a single man, and you
will have some idea of their way of love. What lovers! Eclectic of all
things in love, they will serve up a passion to a woman's order; their
hearts are like a bill of fare in a restaurant. Perhaps they have
never read Stendhal's /De l'Amour/, but unconsciously they put it in
practice. They have by heart their chapters--Love-Taste, Love-Passion,
Love-Caprice, Love-Crystalized, and more than all, Love-Transient. All
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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 Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: the ship's stationery.
It lay so that I could see it was not closed down,
and on picking it up and turning it over I perceived
that it was addressed to myself. It contained a
half-sheet of notepaper, which I unfolded with a
queer sense of dealing with the uncanny, but with-
out any excitement as people meet and do ex-
traordinary things in a dream.
"My dear Captain," it began, but I ran to the
signature. The writer was the doctor. The date
was that of the day on which, returning from my
The Shadow Line |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: lines, and the commandant of the city appointed, military
administration began. The place assumed a mongrel aspect. Though all
things were organized on a French system, the Spaniards were left free
to follow "in petto" their national tastes.
This period of pillage (it is difficult to determine how long it
lasted) had, like all other sublunary effects, a cause, not so
difficult to discover. In the marechal's army was a regiment, composed
almost entirely of Italians and commanded by a certain Colonel Eugene,
a man of remarkable bravery, a second Murat, who, having entered the
military service too late, obtained neither a Grand Duchy of Berg nor
a Kingdom of Naples, nor balls at the Pizzo. But if he won no crown he
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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 A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: "The little ones will be greatly disappointed," murmured the Daemon of
Repentance, almost regretfully; "but that cannot be helped now. Their
grief is likely to make the children selfish and envious and hateful,
and if they come to the Caves of the Daemons today I shall get a
chance to lead some of them to my Cave of Repentance."
"Do you never repent, yourself?" asked Santa Claus, curiously.
"Oh, yes, indeed," answered the Daemon. "I am even now repenting that
I assisted in your capture. Of course it is too late to remedy the
evil that has been done; but repentance, you know, can come only after
an evil thought or deed, for in the beginning there is nothing to
repent of."
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
