| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: alone knew where it was, and then she disappeared.
"I am suffocating, my poor Brigitte," she cried, wiping the tears that
gushed from her eyes, now brilliant with fever, anxiety, and
impatience. "He does not come," she moaned, looking round the room
prepared for her son. "Here alone I can breathe, I can live! A few
minutes more and he MUST be here; for I know he is living. I am
certain of it, my heart says so. Don't you hear something, Brigitte? I
would give the rest of my life to know at this moment whether he were
still in prison, or out in the free country. Oh! I wish I could stop
thinking--"
She again examined the room to see if all were in order. A good fire
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: ourselves. And clearly those things cannot all be regarded as possessions;
for in some cases the possessors would appear none the richer thereby:
but, as I was saying, some one of them is thought in one place to be money,
and the possessors of it are the wealthy, whereas in some other place it is
not money, and the ownership of it does not confer wealth; just as the
standard of morals varies, and what is honourable to some men is
dishonourable to others. And if we wish to enquire why a house is valuable
to us but not to the Scythians, or why the Carthaginians value leather
which is worthless to us, or the Lacedaemonians find wealth in iron and we
do not, can we not get an answer in some such way as this: Would an
Athenian, who had a thousand talents weight of the stones which lie about
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the sea that tows sailing ships into French and English ports.
I stood up on a thwart and waved my soggy coat above my head.
Nobs stood upon another and barked. The girl sat at my feet
straining her eyes toward the deck of the oncoming boat.
"They see us," she said at last. "There is a man answering
your signal." She was right. A lump came into my throat--for
her sake rather than for mine. She was saved, and none too soon.
She could not have lived through another night upon the Channel;
she might not have lived through the coming day.
The tug came close beside us, and a man on deck threw us a rope.
Willing hands dragged us to the deck, Nobs scrambling nimbly
The Land that Time Forgot |
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 Finished by H. Rider Haggard: smelt like roses at the dawn, and she seemed to bend towards me.
With shame and humiliation I perceived that in another moment
those arms would be about me. But somehow they never touched me;
I lost sight of them in the rose-scented smoke, only the sweet,
slow voice which I could have sworn was that of Mameena, murmured
in my ear--well, words known to her and me alone that I had never
breathed to any living being, though of course I am aware now
that they must also have been known to somebody else.
"Do you doubt me any longer?" went on the murmuring. "Say, am I
Nombe now? Or--or am I in truth that Mameena, whose kiss thrills
your lips and soul? Hearken, Macumazahn, for the time is short.
|
