| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: remarked that the first day on ship-board. Oh, yes, I
know a diamond when I see it. But your son picks it up.
Lucky fellow! He picks it up!" He told Miss Vance that
there was a curious attraction about her friend, "who, by
the way, should always wear brown velvet and lace."
Miss Vance drew little Lucy aside after dinner. "Do you
see," she said, "the tears in her eyes? It wrenches my
heart. She has become an old woman in a day. I feel as
if Frances were dead, and that was her ghost joking and
laughing."
Lucy said nothing, but she went to Frances and sat beside
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: of the same name; and his mother, Marfa Strogoff, lived
there still. There, amid the wild steppes of the provinces
of Omsk and Tobolsk, had the famous huntsman brought
up his son Michael to endure hardship. Peter Strogoff was
a huntsman by profession. Summer and winter -- in the
burning heat, as well as when the cold was sometimes fifty
degrees below zero -- he scoured the frozen plains, the
thickets of birch and larch, the pine forests; setting traps;
watching for small game with his gun, and for large game
with the spear or knife. The large game was nothing less
than the Siberian bear, a formidable and ferocious animal,
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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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: was sombre, and the most conspicuous feature was a little cafe
with curtained windows and a shabby front of white woodwork,
corresponding with the squalor of these poorer quarters bordering
the river. We had been shifted down there from another berth in
the neighbourhood of the Opera House, where that same port-hole
gave me a view of quite another sort of cafe--the best in the
town, I believe, and the very one where the worthy Bovary and his
wife, the romantic daughter of old Pere Renault, had some
refreshment after the memorable performance of an opera which was
the tragic story of Lucia di Lammermoor in a setting of light
music.
Some Reminiscences |
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 Anthem by Ayn Rand: "We love you."
But they frowned and shook their
head and looked at us helplessly.
"No," they whispered, "that is not what
we wished to say."
They were silent, then they spoke slowly,
and their words were halting, like the words
of a child learning to speak for the first time:
"We are one . . . alone . . . and only . . .
and we love you who are one . . . alone . . . and only."
We looked into each other's eyes and we knew
Anthem |
