| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: humble lodging. Everything had been made ready. The Sisters had moved
the old chest of drawers between the two chimneys, and covered its
quaint outlines over with a splendid altar cloth of green watered
silk.
The bare walls looked all the barer, because the one thing that hung
there was the great ivory and ebony crucifix, which of necessity
attracted the eyes. Four slender little altar candles, which the
Sisters had contrived to fasten into their places with sealing-wax,
gave a faint, pale light, almost absorbed by the walls; the rest of
the room lay well-nigh in the dark. But the dim brightness,
concentrated upon the holy things, looked like a ray from Heaven
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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 Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: parrel comely, in gate portly. Let not therefore your
gentle heart be so hard as to despise a proper tall, young
man of a handsome life, and by despising him, not only,
but also to kill him. Thus expecting time and tide, I bid
you farewell. Your servant, Signior Strumbo.
Oh wit! Oh pate! O memory! O hand! O ink! O paper!
Well, now I will send it away. Trompart, Trompart! what a
villain is this? Why, sirra, come when your master calls
you. Trompart!
[Trompart, entering, saith:]
TROMPART.
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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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: imagine that there was a sick man within.
Alva. To work then, ere they recover in spite of us.
Silva. I shall bring them without fail. In obedience to your commands we
load them with officious honours; they are alarmed; cautiously, yet
anxiously, they tender us their thanks, feel that flight would be the most
prudent course, yet none venture to adopt it; they hesitate, are unable to
work together, while the bond which unites them prevents their acting
boldly as individuals. They are anxious to withdraw themselves from
suspicion, and thus only render themselves more obnoxious to it. I already
contemplate with joy the successful realization of your scheme.
Alva. I rejoice only over what is accomplished, and not lightly over that;
Egmont |
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 Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: tedious days that Woola and I spent ferreting our way across the
labyrinth of glass, through the dark and devious ways beyond that
led beneath the Valley Dor and Golden Cliffs to emerge at last upon
the flank of the Otz Mountains just above the Valley of Lost Souls--
that pitiful purgatory peopled by the poor unfortunates who dare
not continue their abandoned pilgrimage to Dor, or return to the
various lands of the outer world from whence they came.
Here the trail of Dejah Thoris' abductors led along the mountains' base,
across steep and rugged ravines, by the side of appalling precipices,
and sometimes out into the valley, where we found fighting aplenty
The Warlord of Mars |
