| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: resilient ochre vegetation, he was suddenly surprised to
see a naked man approaching him from the north-east.
As the fellow drew closer, Carthoris halted to await his coming.
He knew that the man was unarmed, and that he was apparently
a Lotharian, for his skin was white and his hair auburn.
He approached the Heliumite without sign of fear,
and when quite close called out the cheery Barsoomian
"kaor" of greeting.
"Who are you?" asked Carthoris.
"I am Kar Komak, odwar of the bowmen," replied the other.
"A strange thing has happened to me. For ages Tario has
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: up and down cause pleasures and pains?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: A better and more unexceptionable way of speaking will be--
PROTARCHUS: What?
SOCRATES: If we say that the great changes produce pleasures and pains,
but that the moderate and lesser ones do neither.
PROTARCHUS: That, Socrates, is the more correct mode of speaking.
SOCRATES: But if this be true, the life to which I was just now referring
again appears.
PROTARCHUS: What life?
SOCRATES: The life which we affirmed to be devoid either of pain or of
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: breath, and if after you have done so for some time the hiccough is no
better, then gargle with a little water; and if it still continues, tickle
your nose with something and sneeze; and if you sneeze once or twice, even
the most violent hiccough is sure to go. I will do as you prescribe, said
Aristophanes, and now get on.
Eryximachus spoke as follows: Seeing that Pausanias made a fair beginning,
and but a lame ending, I must endeavour to supply his deficiency. I think
that he has rightly distinguished two kinds of love. But my art further
informs me that the double love is not merely an affection of the soul of
man towards the fair, or towards anything, but is to be found in the bodies
of all animals and in productions of the earth, and I may say in all that
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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 The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: to contribute to his success. I am impatiently expecting a dispatch
from the Brazilian Legation, which will help to lift the cloud from
his brow. What do you think of him?"
"Well, your brother's face does not look to me like that of a man
busied with money matters."
The young attache shot a scrutinizing glance at the apparently calm
face of his partner.
"What!" he exclaimed, with a smile, "can young ladies read the
thoughts of love behind the silent brow?"
"Your brother is in love, then?" she asked, betrayed into a movement
of curiosity.
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