| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: "Very well," said the cook, and he counted out the two hundred
pennies, and Babo slipped them into his pocket. He bade the woman
open her mouth, and when she had done so he poured all the stuff
down her throat at once.
"Ugh!" said she, and therewith rolled up her eyes, and lay as
stiff and dumb as a herring in a box.
When the cook saw what Babo had done, he snatched up the rolling-pin and made at him to pound his
head to a jelly. But Babo did
not wait for his coming; he jumped out of the window, and away he
scampered with the cook at his heels.
Well, the upshot of the business was that Simon Agricola had to
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: As I realised this I rose, and in three steps had crossed the room,
seized the handle of the door into the yard, and flung it open
before me.
"Prendick, man! Stop!" cried Montgomery, intervening.
A startled deerhound yelped and snarled. There was blood, I saw,
in the sink,--brown, and some scarlet--and I smelt the peculiar
smell of carbolic acid. Then through an open doorway beyond,
in the dim light of the shadow, I saw something bound painfully
upon a framework, scarred, red, and bandaged; and then blotting
this out appeared the face of old Moreau, white and terrible.
In a moment he had gripped me by the shoulder with a hand that was
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: whiteness, recalled those vanishing lines that Leonardo loved. A few
little blemishes here and there, like the patches of the eighteenth
century, proved that Modeste was indeed a child of earth, and not a
creation dreamed of in Italy by the angelic school. Her lips, delicate
yet full, were slightly mocking and somewhat sensuous; the waist,
which was supple and yet not fragile, had no terrors for maternity,
like those of girls who seek beauty by the fatal pressure of a corset.
Steel and dimity and lacings defined but did not create the serpentine
lines of the elegant figure, graceful as that of a young poplar
swaying in the wind.
A pearl-gray dress with crimson trimmings, made with a long waist,
Modeste Mignon |
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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: "I'll have to figure on it a while," said he at last, and turned
back to his mail. All day he worked hard, with only a fifteen-
minute intermission for a lunch which was brought up from the hotel
below. At six o'clock he slammed shut the desk. He descended the
stairs with Orde, from whom he parted at their foot, and walked
precisely away, his tall, thin figure held rigid and slightly askew,
his pale eyes slitted behind his eye-glasses, the unlighted cigar in
one corner of his straight lips. To the occasional passerby he
bowed coldly and with formality. At the corner below he bore to the
left, and after a short walk entered the small one-story house set
well back from the sidewalk among the clumps of oleanders. Here he
|
