| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: himself with love.
"Ah!" he cried, "did you not expect such perfection? You stand before
a woman, and you are looking for a picture! There are such depths on
that canvas, the air within it is so true, that you are unable to
distinguish it from the air you breathe. Where is art? Departed,
vanished! Here is the form itself of a young girl. Have I not caught
the color, the very life of the line which seems to terminate the
body? The same phenomenon which we notice around fishes in the water
is also about objects which float in air. See how these outlines
spring forth from the background. Do you not feel that you could pass
your hand behind those shoulders? For seven years have I studied these
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: he held the flap aside and motioned her within. Meriem entered
and looked about. The tent was empty. She turned toward Hanson.
There was a broad grin on his face.
"Where is Mr. Baynes?" she demanded.
"He ain't here," replied Hanson. "Leastwise I don't see him,
do you? But I'm here, and I'm a damned sight better man than
that thing ever was. You don't need him no more--you got me,"
and he laughed uproariously and reached for her.
Meriem struggled to free herself. Hanson encircled her arms
and body in his powerful grip and bore her slowly backward
toward the pile of blankets at the far end of the tent. His face
The Son of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: centre.
Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers
handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their
yet suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they,
that chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only
deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of
their number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated
caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like
the worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession of the
Siamese! So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along,
driving these leviathans before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of
Moby Dick |
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 Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: household, the master alone took the strange liberty of being
slovenly. His black cloth trousers were covered with stains, his
waistcoat was unbuttoned, his cravat awry, his greenish coat ripped at
the seams,--completing an array of signs, great and small, which in
any other man would have betokened a poverty begotten of vice, but
which in Balthazar Claes was the negligence of genius.
Vice and Genius too often produce the same effects; and this misleads
the common mind. What is genius but a long excess which squanders time
and wealth and physical powers, and leads more rapidly to a hospital
than the worst of passions? Men even seem to have more respect for
vices than for genius, since to the latter they refuse credit. The
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