| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: her sweet, precious heart while she lay beside him, not stirring,
in anticipation of the greatest event in a woman's life. At seven
o'clock he was waked by the touch of her hand on his shoulder,
and a gentle whisper. She seemed struggling between regret at
waking him, and the desire to talk to him.
"Kostya, don't be frightened. It's all right. But I fancy . . .
We ought to send for Lizaveta Petrovna."
The candle was lighted again. She was sitting up in bed, holding
some knitting, which she had been busy upon during the last few
days.
"Please, don't be frightened, it's all right. I'm not a bit
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: of the chime die away--they have endured but an instant--and a
light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And
now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows
through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber
which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the
maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows
a ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes; and the blackness
of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the
sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled
peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears
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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 Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: save that amid a turmoil imperfectly understood and therefore the
more awe-inspiring, the worst must be feared always.
The dreadful song so dreadfully sung, and the thunder of heavily
shod feet upon the roughly paved street, passed on and receded.
They breathed again, almost as if a miracle had saved them, to
yield to fresh alarm an instant later, when madame's young footman,
Jacques, the most trusted of her servants, burst into their presence
unceremoniously with a scared face, bringing the announcement that
a man who had just climbed over the garden wall professed himself a
friend of madame's, and desired to be brought immediately to her
presence.
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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 Cratylus by Plato: Atreus again, for his murder of Chrysippus, and his cruelty to Thyestes, is
rightly named Atreus, which, to the eye of the etymologist, is ateros
(destructive), ateires (stubborn), atreotos (fearless); and Pelops is o ta
pelas oron (he who sees what is near only), because in his eagerness to win
Hippodamia, he was unconscious of the remoter consequences which the murder
of Myrtilus would entail upon his race. The name Tantalus, if slightly
changed, offers two etymologies; either apo tes tou lithou talanteias, or
apo tou talantaton einai, signifying at once the hanging of the stone over
his head in the world below, and the misery which he brought upon his
country. And the name of his father, Zeus, Dios, Zenos, has an excellent
meaning, though hard to be understood, because really a sentence which is
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