| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: " - Taheia, song of the morning, how long is the longest love?
A cry, a clasp of the hands, a star that falls from above!
Ever at morn in the blue, and at night when all is black,
Ever it skulks and trembles with the hunter, Death, on its track.
Hear me, Taheia, death! For tomorrow the priest shall awake,
And the names be named of the victims to bleed for the nation's sake;
And first of the numbered many that shall be slain ere noon,
Rua the child of the dirt, Rua the kinless loon.
For him shall the drum be beat, for him be raised the song,
For him to the sacred High-place the chaunting people throng,
For him the oven smoke as for a speechless beast,
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: sixty-nine, he is as methodical as a clock face. Every day at five
o'clock the old gentleman goes to dine with /her/ in the Rue de la
Victoire. (I am sorry for her.) Then at six o'clock, he comes here,
reads steadily at the papers for four hours, and goes back at ten
o'clock. Daddy Croizeau says that he knows M. Denisart's motives, and
approves his conduct; and in his place, he would do the same. So I
know exactly what to expect. If ever I am Mme. Croizeau, I shall have
four hours to myself between six and ten o'clock.'
"Maxime looked through the directory, and found the following
reassuring item:
"DENISART,* retired custom-house officer, Rue de la Victoire.
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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 Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: apparent debate; but my guard showed so much jealousy of these
movements that I presently shrugged my shoulders again and
desisted.
I had racked my brains to bring about this state of things.
Strange to say, now I had succeeded, I found it less satisfactory
than I had hoped. I had reduced the odds and got rid of my most
dangerous antagonists; but Antoine, left to himself, proved to be
as full of suspicion as an egg of meat. He rode a little behind
me, with his gun across his saddlebow, and a pistol near his
hand; and at the slightest pause on my part, or if I turned to
look at him, he muttered his constant 'Forward, Monsieur!' in a
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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 Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: interested by this discovery I had made, of course--I went on with
my mind full of it--but I went on. It didn't check me. I ran past
tugging out my watch, found I had ten minutes still to spare, and
then I was going downhill into familiar surroundings. I got to
school, breathless, it is true, and wet with perspiration, but in
time. I can remember hanging up my coat and hat . . . Went right
by it and left it behind me. Odd, eh?"
He looked at me thoughtfully. "Of course, I didn't know then
that it wouldn't always be there. School boys have limited
imaginations. I suppose I thought it was an awfully jolly thing to
have it there, to know my way back to it, but there was the school
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