| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: without interrupting the tale."
"How," said Rasselas, "can the Arab, whom you represented as a man
of more than common accomplishments, take any pleasure in his
seraglio, when it is filled only with women like these? Are they
exquisitely beautiful?"
"They do not," said Pekuah, "want that unaffecting and ignoble
beauty which may subsist without sprightliness or sublimity,
without energy of thought or dignity of virtue. But to a man like
the Arab such beauty was only a flower casually plucked and
carelessly thrown away. Whatever pleasures he might find among
them, they were not those of friendship or society. When they were
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: laird's wife would reply with a miraculous curtsey, spreading the while
her plumage - setting off, in other words, and with arts unknown to the
mere man, the pattern of her India shawl. Behind her, the whole
Cauldstaneslap contingent marched in closer order, and with an
indescribable air of being in the presence of the foe; and while Dandie
saluted his aunt with a certain familiarity as of one who was well in
court, Hob marched on in awful immobility. There appeared upon the face
of this attitude in the family the consequences of some dreadful feud.
Presumably the two women had been principals in the original encounter,
and the laird had probably been drawn into the quarrel by the ears, too
late to be included in the present skin-deep reconciliation.
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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 Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: tabernacle of the other, expecting to find the swarm of youngsters
lying in a state of complete inertia, numbed by the cold and by
lack of food. Well, the result is quite different. The instant
their cells are broken open, the anchorites run out and flee in
every direction as nimbly as at the best moments of their normal
liberty. It is marvellous to see them scampering about. No brood
of Partridges, stumbled upon by a Dog, scatters more promptly.
Chicks, while still no more than tiny balls of yellow fluff, hasten
up at the mother's call and scurry towards the plate of rice.
Habit has made us indifferent to the spectacle of those pretty
little animal machines, which work so nimbly and with such
The Life of the Spider |
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 Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: wonder.
On the eleventh day we reached our destination--a walled
frontier city of about twenty thousand. We passed some
lakes, and crossed some old canals before entering the
gates. Within, beside the frame buildings, were many built
of ancient brick and well-cut stone. These, I was told,
were of material taken from the ruins of the ancient city
which, once, had stood upon the site of the present town.
The name of the town, translated from the Abyssinian, is New
Gondar. It stands, I am convinced, upon the ruins of
ancient Berlin, the one time capital of the old German
Lost Continent |
