| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: "Ah! she is still young," he murmured, when he had read the first
lines. "Young, in easy circumstances, happy and contented."
These first pages told of pleasure trips, of visits from and to good
friends, of many little events of every-day life. Then came some
accounts, written in pencil, of shopping expeditions to the city.
Costly laces and jewels had been bought, and linen garments for
children by the dozen. "She is rich, generous, and charitable,"
thought the detective, for the book showed that the considerable
sums which had been spent here had not been for the writer herself.
The laces bore the mark, "For our church"; behind the account for
the linen stood the words, "For the charity school."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: vessels. These vessels were of monstrous value, Jean-Marie -
monstrous value - priceless, we may say; exquisitely worked, of
exquisite material. And now, mark me, they have never been found.
In the reign of Louis Quatorze some fellows were digging hard by
the ruins. Suddenly - tock! - the spade hit upon an obstacle.
Imagine the men fooling one to another; imagine how their hearts
bounded, how their colour came and went. It was a coffer, and in
Franchard the place of buried treasure! They tore it open like
famished beasts. Alas! it was not the treasure; only some priestly
robes, which, at the touch of the eating air, fell upon themselves
and instantly wasted into dust. The perspiration of these good
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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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy
hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes
back. The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as
some men are man-haters. Very shy; always going solitary;
unexpectedly rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen
waters; his straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall
misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted with such wondrous
power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from
man; this leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable Cain of his
race, bearing for his mark that style upon his back. From having the
baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is sometimes included with the
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 Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: splashing fountains, within sight of the Roman Campagna. Her glances
were as tender as in former days; she drew near to him, leaned against
his breast and caressed him fondly.
But he repelled her soft advances. The love she sought to rekindle had
died long ago. He thought instead of all his misfortunes, and of the
twelve long years during which the war had continued. Protracted
anxiety had visibly aged the tetrarch. His shoulders were bent beneath
his violet-bordered toga; his whitening locks were long and mingled
with his beard, and the sunlight revealed many lines upon his brow, as
well as upon that of Herodias. After the tetrarch's repulse of his
wife's tender overtures, the pair gazed morosely at each other.
Herodias |
