| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: of conjecture, there can be no doubt as to the manner of her death,
for in addition to other evidences, the marks of the rope with
which her limbs were bound in life are still distinctly visible.
Such in those days were the mercies of religion!
Then he bade all present gather themselves at the far end of the
vault that our talk might not be overheard, and they did so without
wonder, thinking doubtless that I was a monk sent to confess the
doomed woman.
So I drew near with a beating heart, and bending over her I spoke
in her ear.
'Listen to me, Isabella de Siguenza!' I said; and as I uttered the
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: fanaticisms, disappointments, even crimes, bloodshed, hasty furies,
as of children baulked of their holiday.
But it will be at last fulfilled, filled full, and perfected; not
perhaps here, or among our peoples, or any people which now exist on
earth: but in some future civilisation--it may be in far lands
beyond the sea--when all that you and we have made and done shall be
as the forest-grown mounds of the old nameless civilisers of the
Mississippi valley.
RONDELET, {7} THE HUGUENOT NATURALIST {8}
"Apollo, god of medicine, exiled from the rest of the earth, was
straying once across the Narbonnaise in Gaul, seeking to fix his
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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 Little Britain by Washington Irving: noon, and night; and at each window may be seen some group
of boon companions, with half-shut eyes, hats on one side, pipe
in mouth, and tankard in hand, fondling, and prosing, and
singing maudlin songs over their liquor. Even the sober
decorum of private families, which I must say is rigidly kept up
at other times among my neighbors, is no proof against this
Saturnalia. There is no such thing as keeping maid-servants
within doors. Their brains are absolutely set madding with
Punch and the Puppet Show; the Flying Horses; Signior Polito;
the Fire-Eater; the celebrated Mr. Paap; and the Irish Giant.
The children, too, lavish all their holiday money in toys and
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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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: shore to Batz, where we wish to see the tower which overlooks the bay
between Batz and Croisic."
"With pleasure," he said. "Go straight before you, along the path you
are now on, and I will follow you when I have put away my tackle."
We nodded consent, and he ran off joyfully toward the town. This
meeting maintained us in our previous mental condition; but it
lessened our gay lightheartedness.
"Poor man!" said Pauline, with that accent which removes from the
compassion of a woman all that is mortifying in human pity, "ought we
not to feel ashamed of our happiness in presence of such misery?"
"Nothing is so cruelly painful as to have powerless desires," I
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