| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: The other was again silent; then he said, "I may remind you that,
supposing I had felt any curiosity about the matter, I had no way
of finding out that the letters were written to you. You never
showed me the originals."
"What does that prove? There were fifty ways of finding out.
It's the kind of thing one can easily do."
Flamel glanced at him with contempt. "Our ideas probably differ
as to what a man can easily do. It would not have been easy for
me."
Glennard's anger vented itself in the words uppermost in his
thought. "It may, then, interest you to hear that my wife DOES
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: in search of the Russian when Tambudza suggested to him
that the departure of the white man could only have resulted
from word reaching him from M'ganwazam that Tarzan was
in his village.
"He has doubtless hastened there," argued the old woman.
"If you would find him let us return at once."
Tarzan himself thought that this would probably prove to
be the fact, so he did not waste time in an endeavour to locate
the Russian's trail, but, instead, set out briskly for the village
of M'ganwazam, leaving Tambudza to plod slowly in his wake.
His one hope was that Jane was still safe and with Rokoff.
The Beasts of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: if he thought of her at all it was but as a part of
himself, not as the woman he impatiently desired.
But she was sensible of no resentment, either for
herself or her race, which, indeed, she knew to be
but a wayfarer in the wilderness engaged in a brief
chimerical enterprise. For the first time she felt
her individuality melt into, commingle with his: and
when he lowered his gaze, still with that intensity
of vision piercing the future, her own eyes reflected
the impersonalities of his; and in time he saw it.
XXIV
Rezanov |
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 Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: or unities: the one, when the peace is grounded,
but upon an implicit ignorance; for all colors will
agree in the dark: the other, when it is pieced up,
upon a direct admission of contraries, in funda-
mental points. For truth and falsehood, in such
things, are like the iron and clay, in the toes of
Nebuchadnezzar's image; they may cleave, but
they will not incorporate.
Concerning the means of procuring unity; men
must beware, that in the procuring, or reuniting,
of religious unity, they do not dissolve and deface
Essays of Francis Bacon |
