| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: but this murmur issued from a throat so powerful and so deep that it
resounded through the cave like the last vibrations of an organ in a
church. The man, understanding the importance of his caresses,
redoubled them in such a way as to surprise and stupefy his imperious
courtesan. When he felt sure of having extinguished the ferocity of
his capricious companion, whose hunger had so fortunately been
satisfied the day before, he got up to go out of the cave; the panther
let him go out, but when he had reached the summit of the hill she
sprang with the lightness of a sparrow hopping from twig to twig, and
rubbed herself against his legs, putting up her back after the manner
of all the race of cats. Then regarding her guest with eyes whose
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: Laurentian Mountains, clothed with unbroken forest, rise in sombre
ranges toward the Height of Land. In front of it the waters of the
gulf heave and sparkle far away to where the dim peaks of St. Anne
des Monts are traced along the southern horizon. Sheltered a
little, but not completely, by the island breakwater of granite,
lies the rocky beach of Dead Men's Point, where an English navy was
wrecked in a night of storm a hundred years ago.
There are a score of wooden houses, a tiny, weather-beaten chapel, a
Hudson Bay Company's store, a row of platforms for drying fish, and
a varied assortment of boats and nets, strung along the beach now.
Dead Men's Point has developed into a centre of industry, with a
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: himself great renown. He defeated Tisaphernes in a pitched
battle, and set many cities in revolt. Upon this, Artaxerxes,
perceiving what was his wisest way of waging the war, sent
Timocrates the Rhodian into Greece, with large sums of gold,
commanding him by a free distribution of it to corrupt the
leading men in the cities, and to excite a Greek war against
Sparta. So Timocrates following his instructions, the most
considerable cities conspiring together, and Peloponnesus being
in disorder, the ephors remanded Agesilaus from Asia. At which
time, they say, as he was upon his return, he told his friends
that Artaxerxes had driven him out of Asia with thirty thousand
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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 A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Like farre off mountaines turned into Clouds
Her. Me-thinks I see these things with parted eye,
When euery thing seemes double
Hel. So me-thinkes:
And I haue found Demetrius, like a iewell,
Mine owne, and not mine owne
Dem. It seemes to mee,
That yet we sleepe, we dreame. Do not you thinke,
The Duke was heere, and bid vs follow him?
Her. Yea, and my Father
Hel. And Hippolita
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
