| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: to have shown in the course of our mysterious midnight journeys
to various parts of the earth. Also I remembered that he had
loved Tommy and for his sake had spared our lives. Lastly, I do
not altogether wonder that he came to certain hasty conclusions
as to the value of our modern civilisations.
"I am very glad to hear it, Humphrey, since while there is a
spark left the whole fire may burn up again, and I believe that
to the Divine mercy there are no limits, though Oro will have a
long road to travel before he finds it. And now I have something
to say. It has troubled me very much that I was obliged to leave
those Orofenans wandering in a kind of religious twilight."
When the World Shook |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: on Monday have annihilated the entire population of London,
as it spread itself slowly through the home counties. Not
only along the road through Barnet, but also through Edgware
and Waltham Abbey, and along the roads eastward to South-
end and Shoeburyness, and south of the Thames to Deal and
Broadstairs, poured the same frantic rout. If one could have
hung that June morning in a balloon in the blazing blue
above London every northward and eastward road running out
of the tangled maze of streets would have seemed stippled
black with the streaming fugitives, each dot a human agony
of terror and physical distress. I have set forth at length in
War of the Worlds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: It indeed still lacked a few minutes of the appointed
hour when they thus met and went in together. They were
fortunate enough to find a small table out on the balcony,
sufficiently removed from any other to give privacy to
their conversation.
By tacit agreement, the General ordered the luncheon,
speaking French to the waiter throughout. Divested of his
imposing great-coat, he was seen to be a gentleman of meagre
flesh as well as of small stature. He had the Roman nose,
narrow forehead, bushing brows, and sharply-cut mouth and chin
of a soldier grown old in the contemplation of portraits
The Market-Place |
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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: home on the banks of the Loire; if I were to ask her to sacrifice her
Parisian life on the altar of our love, it would be, in the first
place, a virtuous lie; in the next, I might only be opening the way to
some painful experience; I might lose the heart of a girl who loves
society, and balls, and personal adornment, and ME for the time being.
Some slim and jaunty officer, with a well-frizzed moustache, who can
play the piano, quote Lord Byron, and ride a horse elegantly, may get
her away from me. What shall I do? For Heaven's sake, give me some
advice!"
The honest man, that species of puritan not unlike the father of
Jeannie Deans, of whom I have already told you, and who, up to the
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