| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: And I give you my word, I would rather see a man capably doing evil
than blundering about good.'
Otto was still silent, in extreme dudgeon.
Presently the Doctor resumed: 'I will take the smaller matter first:
your conduct to your wife. You went, I hear, and had an
explanation. That may have been right or wrong; I know not; at
least, you had stirred her temper. At the council she insults you;
well, you insult her back - a man to a woman, a husband to his wife,
in public! Next upon the back of this, you propose - the story runs
like wildfire - to recall the power of signature. Can she ever
forgive that? a woman - a young woman - ambitious, conscious of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: With dear embracements of her lord and knight,
But such as marriage rites should first approve,
When she beheld her foe, with weapon bright
Threatening her death, his trusty courser move,
Her love, her lord, herself abandoned,
She spurred her speedy steed, and swift she fled.
CXI
Erminia fled, scantly the tender grass
Her Pegasus with his light footsteps bent,
Her maiden's beast for speed did likewise pass;
Yet divers ways, such was their fear, they went:
|
| 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: on both bamboos, until they reach the sun-unit, at fifteen feet
above the ground. The climb comes to an end for lack of foothold.
Under normal conditions, the ascent would be shorter. The young
Spiders have at their disposal the bushes, the brushwood, providing
supports on every side for the threads wafted hither and thither by
the eddying air-currents. With these rope-bridges flung across
space, the dispersal presents no difficulties. Each emigrant
leaves at his own good time and travels as suits him best.
My devices have changed these conditions somewhat. My two
bristling poles stand at a distance from the surrounding shrubs,
especially the one which I planted in the middle of the yard.
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 War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: water.
I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet
still in the water, under a clump of furze. The horse lay
motionless (his neck was broken, poor brute!) and by the
lightning flashes I saw the black bulk of the overturned dog
cart and the silhouette of the wheel still spinning slowly. In
another moment the colossal mechanism went striding by
me, and passed uphill towards Pyrford.
Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was
no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was,
with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering
War of the Worlds |
