| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: never did he mention a decision of the Tribunal of Commerce without
calling it the /Sentence of the Consuls/. Up and dressed the first of
the household, in obedience, no doubt, to these old customs, he stood
sternly awaiting the appearance of his three assistants, ready to
scold them in case they were late. These young disciples of Mercury
knew nothing more terrible than the wordless assiduity with which the
master scrutinized their faces and their movements on Monday in search
of evidence or traces of their pranks. But at this moment the old
clothier paid no heed to his apprentices; he was absorbed in trying to
divine the motive of the anxious looks which the young man in silk
stockings and a cloak cast alternately at his signboard and into the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: London teem in every quarter and every hour. Villiers prided
himself as a practised explorer of such obscure mazes and byways
of London life, and in this unprofitable pursuit he displayed an
assiduity which was worthy of more serious employment. Thus he
stood by the lamp-post surveying the passers-by with
undisguised curiosity, and with that gravity known only to the
systematic diner, had just enunciated in his mind the formula:
"London has been called the city of encounters; it is more than
that, it is the city of Resurrections," when these reflections
were suddenly interrupted by a piteous whine at his elbow, and
a deplorable appeal for alms. He looked around in some
The Great God Pan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: the world, and yet by convention ineffably remote. For all that
she was of exceptional intellectual enterprise, she had never yet
considered these things with unaverted eyes. She had viewed them
askance, and without exchanging ideas with any one else in the
world about them.
She went on her way now no longer dreaming and appreciative, but
disturbed and unwillingly observant behind her mask of serene
contentment.
That delightful sense of free, unembarrassed movement was gone.
As she neared the bottom of the dip in Piccadilly she saw a woman
approaching her from the opposite direction--a tall woman who at
|
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 Young Forester by Zane Grey: walked like athletes I had seen. Surely I should find a friend in him, and
I lost no time in running down into the glade. He saw me as soon as I was
clear of the trees, and stood leaning on his rifle.
"Wal, dog-gone my buttons!" he ejaculated. "Who're you?"
I blurted out all about myself, at the same time taking stock of him. He
was not young, but I had never seen a young man so splendid. Hair, beard,
and skin were all of a dark gray. His eyes, too, were gray--the keenest and
clearest I had ever looked into. They shone with a kindly light, otherwise
I might have thought his face hard and stern. His shoulders were very wide,
his arms long, his hands enormous. His buckskin shirt attracted my
attention to his other clothes, which looked like leather overalls or heavy
The Young Forester |
