| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran: When any one of them has tidings of a female child, his face is
overclouded and black, and he has to keep back his wrath.
He skulks away from the people, for the evil tidings he has
heard;- is he to keep it with its disgrace, or to bury it in the
dust?- aye! evil is it that they judge!
For those who disbelieve in the future life is a similitude of evil:
but for God is the loftiest similitude; for He is the mighty, the
wise!
If God were to punish men for their wrong-doing He would not leave
upon the earth a single beast; but He respites them until a stated
time; and when their time comes they cannot put it off an hour, nor
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: "And do you remember what I said to that villain, Jack Malyoe,
that night as his boat went by us?"
"As to that," said Barnaby True, "I do not know that I can say
yes or no, but if you will tell me, I will maybe answer you in
kind."
"Why, I mean this," said the other. "I said that the villain had
got the better of us once again, but that next time it would be
our turn, even if William Brand himself had to come back from
hell to put the business through."
"I remember something of the sort," said Barnaby, "now that you
speak of it, but still I am all in the dark as to what you are
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis: Loge caught him as he fell, threw his body across a shoulder with
little apparent effort, and trotted back into the house with him.
Cleggett had left his sword cane in the barroom, but he judged it
would be just as well to allow it to remain there for the
present. He turned and walked meditatively across the sands
towards the Jasper B.
CHAPTER XII
THE SECOND OBLONG BOX
When Cleggett returned to the ship he found Captain Abernethy in
conversation with a young man of deprecating manner whom the
Captain introduced as the Rev. Simeon Calthrop.
|
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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: such effect on the brain, that there are books by Jacob Boehm,
Swedenborg, and Madame Guyon, so strangely powerful that they give
rise to phantasies as various as the dreams of the opium-eater.
Lambert told me of mystical facts so extraordinary, he so acted on my
imagination, that he made my brain reel. Still, I loved to plunge into
that realm of mystery, invisible to the senses, in which every one
likes to dwell, whether he pictures it to himself under the indefinite
ideal of the Future, or clothes it in the more solid guise of romance.
These violent revulsions of the mind on itself gave me, without my
knowing it, a comprehension of its power, and accustomed me to the
workings of the mind.
Louis Lambert |
