| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: cannon to leave the arsenals of the Russian provinces, per-
haps two or three thousand versts distant. Now, except by
the direct route from Ekaterenburg to Irkutsk, the often
marshy steppes are not easily practicable, and some weeks
must certainly pass before the Russian troops could reach
the Tartar hordes.
Omsk is the center of that military organization of West-
ern Siberia which is intended to overawe the Kirghiz popu-
lation. Here are the bounds, more than once infringed by
the half-subdued nomads, and there was every reason to be-
lieve that Omsk was already in danger. The line of military
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: violent colic; till, after several prolongings of their confinement, some
or other of those that came in with the visitors to inspect the persons
that were ill, in hopes of releasing them, brought the distemper with
them and infected the whole house; and all or most of them died, not
of the plague as really upon them before, but of the plague that those
people brought them, who should have been careful to have protected
them from it. And this was a thing which frequently happened, and
was indeed one of the worst consequences of shutting houses up.
I had about this time a little hardship put upon me, which I was at
first greatly afflicted at, and very much disturbed about though, as it
proved, it did not expose me to any disaster; and this was being
A Journal of the Plague Year |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: in Paris the opulent insolence of their beauty, their diamonds,
and their scandal.
This one was dead, so the most virtuous of women could enter even
her bedroom. Death had purified the air of this abode of splendid
foulness, and if more excuse were needed, they had the excuse
that they had merely come to a sale, they knew not whose. They
had read the placards, they wished to see what the placards had
announced, and to make their choice beforehand. What could be
more natural? Yet, all the same, in the midst of all these
beautiful things, they could not help looking about for some
traces of this courtesan's life, of which they had heard, no
Camille |
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 Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: deputy, and du Croisier, looked startled.
"He has just been arrested in Chesnel's house, where he was hiding,"
said the deputy public prosecutor, with the air of a capable but
unappreciated public servant, who ought by rights to be Minister of
Police. M. Sauvager, the deputy, was a thin, tall young man of five-
and-twenty, with a lengthy olive-hued countenance, black frizzled
hair, and deep-set eyes; the wide, dark rings beneath them were
completed by the wrinkled purple eyelids above. With a nose like the
beak of some bird of prey, a pinched mouth, and cheeks worn lean with
study and hollowed by ambition, he was the very type of a second-rate
personage on the lookout for something to turn up, and ready to do
|
