| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: changes it on the throats of tropic birds to rubies, sapphires,
emeralds, and opals, or keeps it gray and brown on the breasts of the
same birds under the cloudy skies of Europe, or whitens it here in the
bosom of our polar Nature. You know not how to decide whether color is
a faculty with which all substances are endowed, or an effect produced
by an effluence of light. You admit the saltness of the sea without
being able to prove that the water is salt at its greatest depth. You
recognize the existence of various substances which span what you
think to be the void,--substances which are not tangible under any of
the forms assumed by Matter, although they put themselves in harmony
with Matter in spite of every obstacle.
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: the trial was fer tryin' what's left of my boy riders--thet
helped me hold your cattle--fer a lot of hatched-up things the
boys never did. We're used to thet, an' the boys wouldn't hev
minded bein' locked up fer a while, or hevin' to dig ditches, or
whatever the judge laid down. You see, I divided the gold you
give me among all my boys, an' they all hid it, en' they all feel
rich. Howsomever, court was adjourned before the judge passed
sentence. Yes, ma'm, court was adjourned some strange an' quick,
much as if lightnin' hed struck the meetin'-house.
"I hed trouble attendin' the trial, but I got in. There was a
good many people there, all my boys, an' Judge Dyer with his
Riders of the Purple Sage |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: light I burned during these endless nights cost me more than
food. It was a long duel, obstinate, with no sort of consolation.
I found no sympathy anywhere. To have friends, must we not form
connections with young men, have a few sous so as to be able to
go tippling with them, and meet them where students congregate?
And I had nothing! And no one in Paris can understand that
nothing means NOTHING. When I even thought of revealing my
beggary, I had that nervous contraction of the throat which makes
a sick man believe that a ball rises up from the oesophagus into
the larynx.
"In later life I have met people born to wealth who, never having
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: made by man; but 'in our branch of the family' we seem to marry
well. I, considering my piles of work, am wonderfully well; I have
not been so busy for I know not how long. I hope you will send me
the money I asked however, as I am not only penniless, but shall
remain so in all human probability for some considerable time. I
have got in the mass of my expectations; and the 100 pounds which
is to float us on the new year can not come due till SILVERADO is
all ready; I am delaying it myself for the moment; then will follow
the binders and the travellers and an infinity of other nuisances;
and only at the last, the jingling-tingling.
Do you know that TREASURE ISLAND has appeared? In the November
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