| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: completeness of man? Perhaps, in great capitals, young men of
pleasure will answer, "It is youth; and we think what he says!"
Young friends, I do not believe you.
II
Along the grass track I saw now, under the moon, just risen, a
strange procession--never seen before in Australian pastures. It
moved on, noiselessly but quickly. We descended the hillock, and
met it on the way; a sable litter, borne by four men, in unfamiliar
Eastern garments; two other servitors, more bravely dressed, with
yataghans and silver-hilted pistols in their belts, preceded this
somber equipage. Perhaps Margrave divined the disdainful thought
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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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: himself.
"Blanche de Bechamel was wild, then, about this secret of Masonry.
In early, early days I loved, I married a girl fair as Blanche,
who, too, was tormented by curiosity, who, too, would peep into my
closet, into the only secret guarded from her. A dreadful fate
befell poor Fatima. An ACCIDENT shortened her life. Poor thing!
she had a foolish sister who urged her on. I always told her to
beware of Ann. She died. They said her brothers killed me. A
gross falsehood. AM I dead? If I were, could I pledge you in this
wine?"
"Was your name," I asked, quite bewildered, "was your name, pray,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: repeated up and down the line in a muffled roar
of sound.
"Here they come! Here they come!" Gun
locks clicked.
Across the smoke-infested fields came a brown
swarm of running men who were giving shrill
yells. They came on, stooping and swinging
their rifles at all angles. A flag, tilted forward,
sped near the front.
As he caught sight of them the youth was
momentarily startled by a thought that perhaps
The Red Badge of Courage |
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 On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: a degree as to be inappreciable by us; in the other case, or that of
hybrids,the external conditions have remained the same, but the
organisation has been disturbed by two different structures and
constitutions having been blended into one. For it is scarcely possible
that two organisations should be compounded into one, without some
disturbance occurring in the development, or periodical action, or mutual
relation of the different parts and organs one to another, or to the
conditions of life. When hybrids are able to breed inter se, they transmit
to their offspring from generation to generation the same compounded
organisation, and hence we need not be surprised that their sterility,
though in some degree variable, rarely diminishes.
On the Origin of Species |
