| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: it, African elephant.
The antelope, although in plain view of the huge beast, paid
not the slightest attention to it, and I was so wrapped up
in watching the mighty pachyderm that I quite forgot to
shoot at the buck and presently, and in quite a startling
manner, it became impossible to do so.
The elephant was browsing upon the young and tender shoots
of some low bushes, waving his great ears and switching his
short tail. The antelope, scarce twenty paces from him,
continued their feeding, when suddenly, from close beside
the latter, there came a most terrifying roar, and I saw a
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King James Bible: seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.
ISA 47:4 As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy
One of Israel.
ISA 47:5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the
Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.
ISA 47:6 I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance,
and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the
ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.
ISA 47:7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou
didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the
latter end of it.
King James Bible |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: hand fall at her side, it would be simpler then to have it over.
Surely, she could imitate from recollection the glow, the rhapsody, the
self-surrender, she had seen on so many women's faces (on Mrs Ramsay's,
for instance) when on some occasion like this they blazed up--she could
remember the look on Mrs Ramsay's face--into a rapture of sympathy, of
delight in the reward they had, which, though the reason of it escaped
her, evidently conferred on them the most supreme bliss of which human
nature was capable. Here he was, stopped by her side. She would give
him what she could.
2
She seemed to have shrivelled slightly, he thought. She looked a little
To the Lighthouse |
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 A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: gave me two hundred francs for it, and he did not make very much out
of it himself. Then it grew plain to me that journalism alone could
give me a living. The next thing was to find my way into those shops.
I will not tell you all the advances I made, nor how often I begged in
vain. I will say nothing of the six months I spent as extra hand on a
paper, and was told that I scared subscribers away, when as a fact I
attracted them. Pass over the insults I put up with. At this moment I
am doing the plays at the Boulevard theatres, almost gratis, for a
paper belonging to Finot, that stout young fellow who breakfasts two
or three times a month, even now, at the Cafe Voltaire (but you don't
go there). I live by selling tickets that managers give me to bribe a
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