| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: Ammonites in the earliest ages of the world's existence.
And let us not run away with the idea that these princes of the
Mollusc tribe have a monopoly of the scientific curve. In the
stagnant waters of our grassy ditches, the flat shells, the humble
Planorbes, sometimes no bigger than a duckweed, vie with the
Ammonite and the Nautilus in matters of higher geometry. At least
one of them, Planorbis vortex, for example, is a marvel of
logarithmic whorls.
In the long-shaped shells, the structure becomes more complex,
though remaining subject to the same fundamental laws. I have
before my eyes some species of the genus Terebra, from New
The Life of the Spider |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: both sides of his face and peered between them. Fog, mist, a
tree, and--just opposite him--she herself. Yes, there, a few
inches from him, was the sweet, kindly frightened face of a woman
in a cap and a coat of long white fur, leaning towards him.
Their eyes met with instant recognition: not that they had ever
known one another, they had never met before, but by the look
they exchanged they--and he particularly--felt that they knew and
understood one another. After that glance to imagine her to be a
devil and not a simple, kindly, sweet, timid woman, was
impossible.
'Who are you? Why have you come?' he asked.
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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 The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: problem of humanity is solved at last." But, ye long-suffering
powers of heaven, what a solution! It is beside the matter to call
the book ungodly, immoral, base. Le Sage would have answered: "Of
course it is; for so is the world of which it is a picture." No;
the most notable thing about the book is its intense stupidity; its
dreariness, barrenness, shallowness, ignorance of the human heart,
want of any human interest. If it be an epos, the actors in it are
not men and women, but ferrets--with here and there, of course, a
stray rabbit, on whose brains they may feed. It is the inhuman
mirror of an inhuman age, in which the healthy human heart can find
no more interest than in a pathological museum.
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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 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: I'D got to give in. But usually he gave in to me. No, he was never lord
and master. But neither was I. I knew when I could go no further with
him, and then I gave in: though it cost me a good bit, sometimes.'
'And what if you had held out against him?'
'Oh, I don't know, I never did. Even when he was in the wrong, if he
was fixed, I gave in. You see, I never wanted to break what was between
us. And if you really set your will against a man, that finishes it. If
you care for a man, you have to give in to him once he's really
determined; whether you're in the right or not, you have to give in.
Else you break something. But I must say, Ted 'ud give in to me
sometimes, when I was set on a thing, and in the wrong. So I suppose it
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
