| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: could hear and judge the slightest gesture of a man a dozen paces
away--could hear the very beating of his heart. Intonation had
long replaced expression with them, and touches gesture, and their
work with hoe and spade and fork was as free and confident as
garden work can be. Their sense of smell was extraordinarily fine;
they could distinguish individual differences as readily as a dog
can, and they went about the tending of llamas, who lived among
the rocks above and came to the wall for food and shelter, with
ease and confidence. It was only when at last Nunez sought to
assert himself that he found how easy and confident their movements
could be.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: thought you were unhappy, put me--beside myself. It is not an
excuse; it is a weak explanation. I will not forget myself
again."
He was as abject as any one could have wished. It was my minute
of triumph, but I can not pretend that I was happy. Evidently it
had been only a passing impulse. If he had really cared, now that
he knew I was free, he would have forgotten himself again at
once. Then a new explanation occurred to me. Suppose it had been
Bella all the time, and the real shock had been to find that she
had been married!
"The fault of the situation was really mine," I said
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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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: These contradictions need not lower the great Father of Neoplatonism in
our eyes, as a moral being. All accounts of him seem to prove him to
have been what Apollo, in a lengthy oracle, declared him to have been,
"good and gentle, and benignant exceedingly, and pleasant in all his
conversation." He gave good advice about earthly matters, was a
faithful steward of moneys deposited with him, a guardian of widows and
orphans, a righteous and loving man. In his practical life, the ascetic
and gnostic element comes out strongly enough. The body, with him, was
not evil, neither was it good; it was simply nothing--why care about it?
He would have no portrait taken of his person: "It was humiliating
enough to be obliged to carry a shadow about with him, without having a
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: Ex abiete factus est, ait ille, terebinthinum olet--
Carbunculus inest, ait uxor.
Mortuus est nasus, respondit hospes.
Vivus est ait illa,--et si ipsa vivam tangam.
Votum feci sancto Nicolao, ait peregrinus, nasum meum intactum fore usque
ad--Quodnam tempus? illico respondit illa.
Minimo tangetur, inquit ille (manibus in pectus compositis) usque ad illam
horam--Quam horam? ait illa--Nullam, respondit peregrinus, donec pervenio
ad--Quem locum,--obsecro? ait illa--Peregrinus nil respondens mulo
conscenso discessit.
Slawkenbergius's Tale
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