| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: 'Go swiftly and secretly; go for your very lives,' I added.
In another moment they had left with Kara, whom I told to rejoin
us at the door leading from the great courtyard on to the stairway
as soon as he had made fast behind the girls. Thither, too,
Umslopogaas and I made our way, followed by the Queen and her
women. As we went we tore off mouthfuls of food, and between
them I told her what I knew of the danger which encompassed her,
and how we found Kara, and how all the guards and men-servants
were gone, and she was alone with her women in that great place;
and she told me, too, that a rumour had spread through the town
that our army had been utterly destroyed, and that Sorais was
Allan Quatermain |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There,
with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of
meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing
blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those
paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new
principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which
resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience
and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort
of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that
pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and
all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: He's a Souldier, fit to stand by Caesar,
And giue direction. And do but see his vice,
'Tis to his vertue, a iust Equinox,
The one as long as th' other. 'Tis pittie of him:
I feare the trust Othello puts him in,
On some odde time of his infirmitie
Will shake this Island
Mont. But is he often thus?
Iago. 'Tis euermore his prologue to his sleepe,
He'le watch the Horologe a double Set,
If Drinke rocke not his Cradle
Othello |
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 What is Man? by Mark Twain: remotely indicates that he was ever anything more than a
distinctly commonplace person--a manager, an actor of inferior
grade, a small trader in a small village that did not regard him
as a person of any consequence, and had forgotten all about him
before he was fairly cold in his grave. We can go to the records
and find out the life-history of every renowned RACE-HORSE of
modern times--but not Shakespeare's! There are many reasons why,
and they have been furnished in cart-loads (of guess and
conjecture) by those troglodytes; but there is one that is worth
all the rest of the reasons put together, and is abundantly
sufficient all by itself--HE HADN'T ANY HISTORY TO RECORD. There
What is Man? |
