| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: Six--five, emissary of the king!"
When alone in my room I hushed my breathing that I might hear her
passing to and fro in hers. She was calm and pure, but I was lashed
with maddening ideas. "Why should she not be mine?" I thought;
"perhaps she is, like me, in this whirlwind of agitation." At one
o'clock, I went down, walking noiselessly, and lay before her door.
With my ear pressed to a chink I could hear her equable, gentle
breathing, like that of a child. When chilled to the bone I went back
to bed and slept tranquilly till morning. I know not what prenatal
influence, what nature within me, causes the delight I take in going
to the brink of precipices, sounding the gulf of evil, seeking to know
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Then back toward the South Tantor moved, steadily, relentlessly,
and with a swinging gait which took no heed of any obstacle other
than the larger jungle trees. At times Korak was forced to
abandon the broad head and take to the trees above, so close
the branches raked the back of the elephant; but at last they
came to the edge of the clearing where lay the camp of the
renegade Swede, nor even then did they hesitate or halt.
The gate lay upon the east side of the camp, facing the river.
Tantor and Korak approached from the north. There was no gate
there; but what cared Tantor or Korak for gates.
At a word from the ape man and raising his tender trunk high
The Son of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: palaces of note.
3. TRENT, so called from thirty kind of fishes that are found in it, or
for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers; who having his fountain in
Staffordshire, and gliding through the counties of Nottingham, Lincoln,
Leicester, and York, augmenteth the turbulent current of Humber, the
most violent stream of all the isle This Humber is not, to say truth, a
distinct river having a spring-head of his own, but it is rather the mouth
or aestuarium of divers rivers here confluent and meeting together,
namely, your Derwent, and especially of Ouse and Trent; and, as the
Danow, having received into its channel the river Dravus, Savus,
Tibiscus, and divers others, changeth his name into this of Humberabus,
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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 Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: Ile pay thee soundly. This ile take.
ARCITE.
That's mine, then;
Ile arme you first.
PALAMON.
Do: pray thee, tell me, Cosen,
Where gotst thou this good Armour?
ARCITE.
Tis the Dukes,
And to say true, I stole it; doe I pinch you?
PALAMON.
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