| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: groom, and I also dismounted, but into his arms, which were stretched
out to receive me. I threw my skirt over my left arm, gave him my
right, and we walked on--still in silence. The few steps we thus took
might be reckoned to me for a hundred years of purgatory. A swarm of
thoughts beset me as I walked, now seeming to take visible form in
tongues of fire before my eyes, now assailing my mind, each with its
own poisoned dart. When the groom and the horses were far away, I
stopped Gaston, and, looking him in the face, said, as I pointed, with
a gesture that you should have seen, to the fatal letter still in his
right hand:
"May I read it?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: ribs at the fire. He looked at me and grinned from ear to ear. 'Master
was a little nice,' he said, 'and lay down in the road. Something might
ride over master, so I carried him there.' He grinned at me again. It was
as though he said, 'You and I are comrades. I have lain in a road, too. I
know all about it.'
"When I turned my head from him I saw the earth, so pure after the rain, so
green, so fresh, so blue; and I was a drunken carrier, whom his leader had
picked up in the mud, and laid at the roadside to sleep out his drink. I
remember my old life, and I remember you. I saw how, one day, you would
read in the papers: 'A German carrier, named Waldo Farber, was killed
through falling from his wagon, being instantly crushed under the wheel.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: devoured by lions; and from other indications about I was soon assured
that if the family were not in the pan that day they spent a good deal
of their spare time there. But if there, the question was how to get
them out; for it was clearly impossible to think of going in after them
unless one was quite determined to commit suicide. Now there was a
strong wind blowing from the direction of the waggon, across the reedy
pan towards the bush-clad kloof or donga, and this first gave me the
idea of firing the reeds, which, as I think I told you, were pretty dry.
Accordingly Tom took some matches and began starting little fires to
the left, and I did the same to the right. But the reeds were still
green at the bottom, and we should never have got them well alight had
Long Odds |
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 Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: most convincing. Have you any errand, sir, in the Emerald City?"
"It seems to me that I have," replied the Pumpkinhead, seriously; "but I
cannot think what it is. My father knows all about it, but he is not here."
"This is a strange affair very strange!" declared the Guardian. "But you
seem harmless. Folks do not smile so delightfully when they mean mischief."
"As for that," said Jack, "I cannot help my smile, for it is carved on my
face with a jack-knife."
67
"Well, come with me into my room," resumed the Guardian, "and I will see
what can be done for you."
So Jack rode the Saw-Horse through the gateway into a little room built into
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
