| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: which I must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along
but a single branchless corridor."
And I recalled the exit at which he had pointed as he spoke.
It did not take me long to start upon that unknown way, nor did
I go with caution, although I knew that there might be grave
dangers before me.
Part of the way was black as sin, but for the most it was
fairly well lighted. The stretch where I must hug the left wall to
The Warlord of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: were making their appearance on the canvas.
"But the more closely he approached resemblance, the more conscious he
became of an aggressive, uneasy feeling which he could not explain to
himself. Notwithstanding this, he set himself to copy with literal
accuracy every trait and expression. First of all, however, he busied
himself with the eyes. There was so much force in those eyes, that it
seemed impossible to reproduce them exactly as they were in nature.
But he resolved, at any price, to seek in them the most minute
characteristics and shades, to penetrate their secret. As soon,
however, as he approached them in resemblance, and began to redouble
his exertions, there sprang up in his mind such a terrible feeling of
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: In times of hardship. Ceres was the first
Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod,
When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear
Acorns and arbutes, and her wonted food
Dodona gave no more. Soon, too, the corn
Gat sorrow's increase, that an evil blight
Ate up the stalks, and thistle reared his spines
An idler in the fields; the crops die down;
Upsprings instead a shaggy growth of burrs
And caltrops; and amid the corn-fields trim
Unfruitful darnel and wild oats have sway.
Georgics |
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 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: Well, he's of that class. He's the son, it appears, of some
Moscow butler, and has never had any sort of bringing-up. When he
got into the academy and made his reputation he tried, as he's no
fool, to educate himself. And he turned to what seemed to him the
very source of culture--the magazines. In old times, you see, a
man who wanted to educate himself--a Frenchman, for instance--
would have set to work to study all the classics and theologians
and tragedians and historiaris and philosophers, and, you know,
all the intellectual work that came in his way. But in our day he
goes straight for the literature of negation, very quickly
assimilates all the extracts of the science of negation, and he's
Anna Karenina |
