| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of Torn was too far ahead to be caught by the King's
men; so she said:
"There was one here just before you came who called
himself though by another name than Norman of Torn,
possibly it is he ye seek."
"Which way rode he?" cried the officer.
"Straight toward the west by the middle road," lied
Joan de Tany. And as the officer hurried from the castle
and, with his men at his back, galloped furiously away
toward the west, the girl sank down upon a bench,
pressing her little hands to her throbbing temples.
The Outlaw of Torn |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: for an attempt at repairing. Finding no foothold for her legs on
one side, the Spider went to look into the state of things and, in
so doing, crossed the rent. In going and returning, she left a
thread, as is the custom with all the Epeirae when walking. It was
not a deliberate mending, but the mere result of an uneasy change
of place.
Perhaps the subject of my experiment thought it unnecessary to go
to fresh trouble and expense, for the web can serve quite well as
it is, after my scissor-cut: the two halves together represent the
original snaring-surface. All that the Spider, seated in a central
position, need do is to find the requisite support for her spread
The Life of the Spider |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: them. Some difference of style, or inferiority of execution, or
inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered decisive of their
spurious character. For who always does justice to himself, or who writes
with equal care at all times? Certainly not Plato, who exhibits the
greatest differences in dramatic power, in the formation of sentences, and
in the use of words, if his earlier writings are compared with his later
ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with the Laws. Or who can be expected
to think in the same manner during a period of authorship extending over
above fifty years, in an age of great intellectual activity, as well as of
political and literary transition? Certainly not Plato, whose earlier
writings are separated from his later ones by as wide an interval of
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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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare:
Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty; 856
Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.
Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:
'O thou clear god, and patron of all light, 860
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow
The beauteous influence that makes him bright,
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