| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: with ease upon the bending limb and uttering loud shouts of glee
as he noted the terrified expressions upon the faces of his audience.
The mother and tutor both rushed toward the window but before
they had crossed half the room the boy had leaped nimbly to the
sill and entered the apartment with them.
"`The wild man from Borneo has just come to town,'" he sang,
dancing a species of war dance about his terrified mother
and scandalized tutor, and ending up by throwing his arms about
the former's neck and kissing her upon either cheek.
"Oh, Mother," he cried, "there's a wonderful, educated ape
being shown at one of the music halls. Willie Grimsby saw it
The Son of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Koran: believers,- do they crave honour from them? Verily, honour is
altogether God's!
He hath revealed this to you in the Book, that when ye hear the
signs of God disbelieved in and mocked at, then sit ye not down with
them until they plunge into another discourse, for verily, then ye
would be like them. Verily, God will gather the hypocrites and
misbelievers into hell together.
Those who lie in wait for you, and if the victory be yours from God,
say, 'Were we not with you?' and if the misbelievers have a chance,
they say, 'Did we not get the mastery over you, and defend you from
the believers?' But God shall judge between you on the resurrection
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Of vision, marvel not: but learn the cause
In that perfection of the sight, which soon
As apprehending, hasteneth on to reach
The good it apprehends. I well discern,
How in thine intellect already shines
The light eternal, which to view alone
Ne'er fails to kindle love; and if aught else
Your love seduces, 't is but that it shows
Some ill-mark'd vestige of that primal beam.
"This would'st thou know, if failure of the vow
By other service may be so supplied,
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: If I were rich, should I live as I do!'
"He made his cup of coffee himself every morning on the cast-iron
chafing dish which stood all day in the black angle of the grate; his
dinner came in from a cookshop; and our old porter's wife went up at
the prescribed hour to set his room in order. Finally, a whimsical
chance, in which Sterne would have seen predestination, had named the
man Gobseck. When I did business for him later, I came to know that he
was about seventy-six years old at the time when we became acquainted.
He was born about 1740, in some outlying suburb of Antwerp, of a Dutch
father and a Jewish mother, and his name was Jean-Esther Van Gobseck.
You remember how all Paris took an interest in that murder case, a
Gobseck |
