| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: reflection worthy of the Duke of Urbino crossed his mind, and it
was a keen sense of curiosity that goaded him into boldness. The
devil himself might have whispered the words that were echoing
through his brain, Moisten one of the eyes with the liquid! He
took up a linen cloth, moistened it sparingly with the precious
fluid, and passed it lightly over the right eyelid of the corpse.
The eye unclosed. . . .
"Aha!" said Don Juan. He gripped the flask tightly, as we clutch
in dreams the branch from which we hang suspended over a
precipice.
For the eye was full of life. It was a young child's eye set in a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and
inhumanity, which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator
God, of an Infinite God, was the reason, so to speak, for the
invention of a Holy Spirit, as something proceeding from him, as
something bridging the great gulf, a Comforter, a mediator
descending into the sphere of the human understanding. That, and
the suggestive influence of the Egyptian Trinity that was then being
worshipped at the Serapeum, and which had saturated the thought of
Alexandria with the conception of a trinity in unity, are probably
the realities that account for the Third Person of the Christian
Trinity. At any rate the present writer believes that the
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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 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: part of my tale, I gave the name of "Mr. Jameson, a Highland
chief." It was truly the most open farce, and I wondered that
the lawyer should care to keep it up; but, after all, it was
quite in the taste of that age, when there were two parties in
the state, and quiet persons, with no very high opinions of their
own, sought out every cranny to avoid offence to either.
"Well, well," said the lawyer, when I had quite done, "this is a
great epic, a great Odyssey of yours. You must tell it, sir, in
a sound Latinity when your scholarship is riper; or in English if
you please, though for my part I prefer the stronger tongue. You
have rolled much; quae regio in terris -- what parish in Scotland
Kidnapped |
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 Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: of your fortune to her son?"
"How could I make such a proposition, especially to a woman
who always professes to be so entirely disinterested?"
"Valentine, I have always regarded our love in the light of
something sacred; consequently, I have covered it with the
veil of respect, and hid it in the innermost recesses of my
soul. No human being, not even my sister, is aware of its
existence. Valentine, will you permit me to make a confidant
of a friend and reveal to him the love I bear you?"
Valentine started. "A friend, Maximilian; and who is this
friend? I tremble to give my permission."
The Count of Monte Cristo |
