| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: the beautiful one; there arriving and quickening the passages of the wings,
watering them and inclining them to grow, and filling the soul of the
beloved also with love. And thus he loves, but he knows not what; he does
not understand and cannot explain his own state; he appears to have caught
the infection of blindness from another; the lover is his mirror in whom he
is beholding himself, but he is not aware of this. When he is with the
lover, both cease from their pain, but when he is away then he longs as he
is longed for, and has love's image, love for love (Anteros) lodging in his
breast, which he calls and believes to be not love but friendship only, and
his desire is as the desire of the other, but weaker; he wants to see him,
touch him, kiss him, embrace him, and probably not long afterwards his
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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 Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Madame!" exclaimed the surprised man. "Be all the
world gone crazy?"
And then she told him the strange story of the little
lost prince of England.
When she had finished, he knelt at her feet, taking
her hand in his and raising it to his lips.
"I did not know, Madame," he said, "or never would
my sword have been bared in other service than thine.
If thou canst forgive me, Madame, never can I forgive
myself."
"Take it not so hard, my son," said Eleanor of Eng-
The Outlaw of Torn |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: scarcely ready to believe in such complete depravity.
"If there is no executioner for such crimes," he said, as he
looked up at the lighted windows of the ballroom where the most
enchanting women in Paris were dancing, laughing, and chatting,
"I will take you by the nape of the neck, Mme la Duchesse, and
make you feel something that bites more deeply than the knife in
the Place de la Greve. Steel against steel; we shall see which
heart will leave the deeper mark."
For a week or so Mme de Langeais hoped to see the Marquis de
Montriveau again; but he contented himself with sending his card
every morning to the Hotel de Langeais. The Duchess could not
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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 Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness
of her reputed illness, the absence of her daughter,
and probably of her other children, at the time--all favoured
the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin--jealousy
perhaps, or wanton cruelty--was yet to be unravelled.
In revolving these matters, while she undressed,
it suddenly struck her as not unlikely that she might
that morning have passed near the very spot of this
unfortunate woman's confinement--might have been within a few
paces of the cell in which she languished out her days;
for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for the
Northanger Abbey |
