| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: rock, bright with rays of the Light Divine, was forsaken; thou hast
sparkled with diamonds, and shone with the glitter of luxury and
pride. Then, grown bold and insolent, seizing and overturning all
things in thy course like a courtesan eager for pleasure in her days
of splendor, thou hast steeped thyself in blood like some queen
stupefied by empery. Dost thou not remember to have been dull and
heavy at times, and the sudden marvelous lucidity of other moments; as
when Art emerges from an orgy? Oh! poet, painter, and singer, lover of
splendid ceremonies and protector of the arts, was thy friendship for
art perchance a caprice, that so thou shouldst sleep beneath
magnificent canopies? Was there not a day when, in thy fantastic
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: understood him if he had. The coloured boys don't know his language. I
expect he's one of those bloody fellows we hit the day we cleared the bush
out yonder; but how he got down that bank with his leg in the state it must
have been, I don't know. He didn't try to fight when they caught him; just
stared in front of him--fright, I suppose. He must have been a big
strapping devil before he was taken down.
"Well, I tell you, we'd just got him fixed up, and the Captain was just
going into his tent to have a drink, and we chaps were all standing round,
when up steps Halket, right before the Captain, and pulls his front lock--
you know the way he has? Oh, my God, my God, if you could have seen it!
I'll never forget it to my dying day!" The Colonial seemed bursting with
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: Clousier's arm to return to the salon.
The prejudice Gerard's appearance excited against him had been quickly
dispelled, and the three notables congratulated themselves on so good
an acquisition.
"Unfortunately," said Monsieur Bonnet, "there is a cause of antagonism
between Russia and the Catholic countries which border the
Mediterranean, in the very unimportant schism which separates the
Greek religion from the Latin religion; and it is a great misfortune
for humanity."
"We all preach our own saint," said Madame Graslin. "Monsieur
Grossetete thinks of the lost millions; Monsieur Clousier, of the
|
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 Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: is Presba, and from there we go down into Monastir and reach a
railway and get back to the world of our own times again."
8
But before they reached the world of their own times Macedonia was
to show them something grimmer than Albania.
They were riding through a sunlit walnut wood beyond Ochrida when
they came upon the thing.
The first they saw of it looked like a man lying asleep on a grassy
bank. But he lay very still indeed, he did not look up, he did not
stir as they passed, the pose of his hand was stiff, and when Benham
glanced back at him, he stifled a little cry of horror. For this
|
