| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: Aedicules of different shapes were visible beneath clusters of
turpentine trees. Here and there rose a stone phallus, and large stags
roamed peacefully about, spurning the fallen fir-cones with their
cloven hoofs.
But they retraced their steps between two long galleries which ran
parallel to each other. There were small open cells along their sides,
and tabourines and cymbals hung against their cedar columns from top
to bottom. Women were sleeping stretched on mats outside the cells.
Their bodies were greasy with unguents, and exhaled an odour of spices
and extinguished perfuming-pans; while they were so covered with
tattooings, necklaces, rings, vermilion, and antimony that, but for
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: bread in this world. The landlord eyed him over but did not find him
as good as Don Quixote said, nor even half as good; and putting him up
in the stable, he returned to see what might be wanted by his guest,
whom the damsels, who had by this time made their peace with him, were
now relieving of his armour. They had taken off his breastplate and
backpiece, but they neither knew nor saw how to open his gorget or
remove his make-shift helmet, for he had fastened it with green
ribbons, which, as there was no untying the knots, required to be cut.
This, however, he would not by any means consent to, so he remained
all the evening with his helmet on, the drollest and oddest figure
that can be imagined; and while they were removing his armour,
Don Quixote |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: the degree of their appreciation of old pictures; in the early
years of the century (and surely with more reason) a character
like that of my grandmother warmed, charmed, and subdued, like
a strain of music, the hearts of the men of her own household.
And there is little doubt that Mrs. Smith, as she looked on at
the domestic life of her son and her stepdaughter, and
numbered the heads in their increasing nursery, must have
breathed fervent thanks to her Creator.
Yet this was to be a family unusually tried; it was not
for nothing that one of the godly women saluted Miss Janet
Smith as `a veteran in affliction'; and they were all before
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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 Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: The figures had gone round the hall once. The "first set" was out
again, and as Ridgeway guided Miss Herrick by the "rovers" she
looked over the array of shirt-fronts, searching for Jerry Haight.
"Do you see Mr. Haight?" she asked of Ridgeway. "I wanted to
favor him this break. I owe him two already, and he'll never
forgive me if I overlook him now."
Jerry Haight had gone to the hotel office for a few moments' rest
and a cigarette, and was nowhere in sight. But when the set
broke, and Miss Herrick, despairing of Jerry, had started out to
favor one of the younger ensigns, she suddenly jostled against
him, pushing his way eagerly across the floor in the direction of
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