| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: developing a senile passion, a senseless passion, which had an
appearance of reason. In fact, he found here neither the banter, nor
the orgies, nor the reckless expenditure, nor the depravity, nor the
scorn of social decencies, nor the insolent independence which had
brought him to grief alike with the actress and the singer. He was
spared, too, the rapacity of the courtesan, like unto the thirst of
dry sand.
Madame Marneffe, of whom he had made a friend and confidante, made the
greatest difficulties over accepting any gift from him.
"Appointments, official presents, anything you can extract from the
Government; but do not begin by insulting a woman whom you profess to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: along the elm-tree colonnade.
There was the faintest haze over the silvery-dark water
and the green meadow-bank, and the elm-trees that were spangled
with gold. The river slid by in a body, utterly silent and swift,
intertwining among itself like some subtle, complex creature.
Clara walked moodily beside him.
"Why," she asked at length, in rather a jarring tone, "did you
leave Miriam?"
He frowned.
"Because I WANTED to leave her," he said.
"Why?"
Sons and Lovers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: inherent in the general carrying forward of knowledge in large
quantities.
The few existing instances of clear transmission
had caused, and would cause at known future times, great disasters.
And it was largely in consequence of two cases of this kind -
said the old myths - that mankind had learned what it had concerning
the Great Race.
Of all things surviving physically and directly
from that aeon-distant world, there remained only certain ruins
of great stones in far places and under the sea, and parts of
the text of the frightful Pnakotic Manuscripts.
Shadow out of Time |
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 Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: 'Yes, everybody, but not always.'
'Cover up my feet. Not like that--how clumsy you are! No! More,
more--like that! But you need not squeeze them!'
So they came to the forest where the cell was.
Makovkina got out of the sledge, and told them to drive on. They
tried to dissuade her, but she grew irritable and ordered them to
go on.
When the sledges had gone she went up the path in her white
dogskin coat. The lawyer got out and stopped to watch her.
It was Father Sergius's sixth year as a recluse, and he was now
forty-nine. His life in solitude was hard--not on account of the
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