| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: flew about him seemed to frighten him no more than a swarm of
swallows. Extraordinary to say, none of them touched him.
Hamilcar pitched his camp on the south side; Narr' Havas, to his
right, occupied the plain of Rhades, and Hanno the shore of the lake;
and the three generals were to maintain their respective positions, so
as all to attack the walls simultaneously.
But Hamilcar wished first to show the Mercenaries that he would punish
them like slaves. He had the ten ambassadors crucified beside one
another on a hillock in front of the town.
At the sight of this the besieged forsook the rampart.
Matho had said to himself that if he could pass between the walls and
Salammbo |
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 Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: flock of Exmoors, which chanced to be there this year.
Their pied faces and legs, dark and heavy horns, tresses
of wool hanging round their swarthy foreheads, quite
relieved the monotony of the flocks in that quarter.
All these bleating, panting, and weary thousands had
entered and were penned before the morning had far
advanced, the dog belonging to each flock being tied to
the corner of the pen containing it. Alleys for pedes-
trians intersected the pens, which soon became crowded
with buyers and sellers from far and near.
In another part of the hill an altogether different
Far From the Madding Crowd |
