| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: rows and rows of the little arm-chairs sat, and where all the little
girls learned to Count, and to say Their Prayers, and to Tell the
Time, and to sing ``Angels Bright,'' and to know the A B C blocks.
Sister Theckla, who always stayed the one hour in that room, had
gone to say to the Sisters that the one hour was over, and that it
was raining, and what must the little girls do now?
While Sister Theckla was gone, all the little girls went to the
windows, and all the tiny girls looked at the rain coming down,
coming down in drops, so many drops; and so fast the drops came that
they seemed to come in long strings of drops straight from the sky.
Then one little girl laughed and began to beat on the window by
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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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke: "Is there not one here for me? You may not let me enter it yet,
perhaps,
for I must confess to you that I am only--"
"I know," said the Keeper of the Gate--"I know it all.
You are John Weightman."
"Yes," said the man, more firmly than he had spoken at first,
for it gratified him that his name was known. "Yes, I am John
Weightman,
Senior Warden of St. Petronius' Church. I wish very much to see
my mansion here, if only for a moment. I believe that you have
one for me.
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: mental /macedoine/[*], half jesting, half funereal. With my left foot
I kept time to the music, and the other felt as if it were in a tomb.
My leg was, in fact, frozen by one of those draughts which congeal one
half of the body while the other suffers from the intense heat of the
salons--a state of things not unusual at balls.
[*] /Macedoine/, in the sense in which it is here used, is a game, or
rather a series of games, of cards, each player, when it is his
turn to deal, selecting the game to be played.
"Monsieur de Lanty has not owned this house very long, has he?"
"Oh, yes! It is nearly ten years since the Marechal de Carigliano sold
it to him."
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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 The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: years before in the battle with the forces of Peter of Blentz.
Many times he had caught himself scrutinizing the face of
the monarch, searching for some proof that after all he
was not Leopold.
"Direct the commanders of forts three and four to con-
centrate their fire on the enemy's guns directly north of Fort
No. 3," Barney directed an aide. "Simultaneously let the
cavalry and Colonel Kazov's infantry make a determined as-
sault on the Austrian trenches."
Then he turned his horse toward the left of his line, where,
a little to the rear, lay the fresh troops that he had been
The Mad King |
