| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: vaguest hint that the Devil of Torn would get them,
and grown men had come to whisper the name with
grim, set lips.
"Norman of Torn!" she whispered. "May God have
mercy on my soul!"
Beneath the visored helm a wave of pain and sorrow
surged across the countenance of the outlaw, and a
little shudder, as of a chill of hopelessness, shook his
giant frame.
"You need not fear, My Lady," he said sadly. "You
shall be in your father's castle of Leicester ere the sun
The Outlaw of Torn |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: of your concerts that you are my pupil, is it not so?"
Harmony was drawing on her worn gloves; her hands trembled a
little with the praise and excitement.
"If I can stay so long," she answered unsteadily.
"You must stay. Have I so long labored, and now before it is
finished you talk of going! Gott im Himmel!"
"It is a matter of money. My father is dead. And unless I find
something to do I shall have to go back."
The master had heard many such statements. They never ceased to
rouse his ire against a world that had money for everything but
music. He spent five minutes in indignant protest, then:--
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: reality. I have said of myself that I was one who stood in
symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. There is not
a single wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does
not stand in symbolic relation to the very secret of life. For the
secret of life is suffering. It is what is hidden behind
everything. When we begin to live, what is sweet is so sweet to
us, and what is bitter so bitter, that we inevitably direct all our
desires towards pleasures, and seek not merely for a 'month or
twain to feed on honeycomb,' but for all our years to taste no
other food, ignorant all the while that we may really be starving
the soul.
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: goddess Hygieia. Ah, believe me, it is she who has the cestus!
And here, in this exiguous hamlet, has she placed her shrine: here
she dwells and lavishes her gifts; here I walk with her in the
early morning, and she shows me how strong she has made the
peasants, how fruitful she has made the fields, how the trees grow
up tall and comely under her eyes, and the fishes in the river
become clean and agile at her presence. - Rheumatism!' he would
cry, on some malapert interruption, 'O, yes, I believe we do have a
little rheumatism. That could hardly be avoided, you know, on a
river. And of course the place stands a little low; and the
meadows are marshy, there's no doubt. But, my dear sir, look at
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