| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Old longings in fulfilling new desires.
And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense
Expectancy and anguish of suspense,
On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he sees
Like a strange, fated bride as yet unknown,
His timid future shrinking there alone,
Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.
LIFE
Children, ye have not lived, to you it seems
Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams,
Or carnival of careless joys that leap
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: while measuring in her soul the depths of the political abyss which
lay before her, like the natural depths which rolled away at her feet.
This day was the second of those terrible days (that of the arrest of
the Vidame of Chartres being the first) which she was destined to meet
in so great numbers throughout her regal life; it also witnessed her
last blunder in the school of power. Though the sceptre seemed
escaping from her hands, she wished to seize it; and she did seize it
by a flash of that power of will which was never relaxed by either the
disdain of her father-in-law, Francois I., and his court,--where, in
spite of her rank of dauphiness, she had been of no account,--or the
constant repulses of her husband, Henri II., and the terrible
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: the morning twilight, with the dim plain stretching away to nothing
and the spectral mountains slumbering against the sky. You'll hear
another note in a minute - faint and far and clear, like the other
one, and sweeter still, you'll notice. Wait . . . listen. There
it goes! It says, 'IT IS I, SOLDIER - COME!' . . .
[SOLDIER BOY'S BUGLE CALL]
. . . Now then, watch me leave a blue streak behind!"
CHAPTER VII - SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS
"Did you do as I told you? Did you look up the Mexican Plug?"
"Yes, I made his acquaintance before night and got his friendship."
"I liked him. Did you?"
|
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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: to the mill, from which the hands were just coming, and then down
at the phaeton moving idly down the road. How cold it was
growing! People passing by had a sickly look, as if they were
struck by the plague. He pushed the damp hair back, wiping his
forehead, with another glance at the mill-women coming out of the
gate, and then followed the phaeton down the hill.
CHAPTER VI.
An hour after, the evening came on sultry, the air murky, opaque,
with yellow trails of colour dragging in the west: a sullen
stillness in the woods and farms; only, in fact, that dark,
inexplicable hush that precedes a storm. But Lois, coming down
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
