| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: and tender maidens with grief yet fresh at heart; and many
there were, wounded with bronze-shod spears, men slain in
fight with their bloody mail about them. And these many
ghosts flocked together from every side about the trench
with a wondrous cry, and pale fear gat hold on me. Then did
I speak to my company and command them to flay the sheep
that lay slain by the pitiless sword, and to consume them
with fire, and to make prayer to the gods, to mighty Hades
and to dread Persephone, and myself I drew the sharp sword
from my thigh and sat there, suffering not the strengthless
heads of the dead to draw nigh to the blood, ere I had word
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: turned the key in pretense only, soon vanished. It would have been
a foolish suspicion anyway. If he were in league with the murderer,
he could have let the latter escape with much more safety during the
night. Horn let his eyes wander about the rooms again, and said
slowly: "Then the murderer is still here - or else - "
"Or else?" asked the doctor.
"Or else we have a strange riddle to solve."
Johann had laid the pistol down again. Muller stretched forth his
hand and took it up. He looked at it a moment, then handed it to
the commissioner. "We have to do with a murder here. There was
not a shot fired from this revolver, for every chamber is still
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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 Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: hand, and said in a voice broken by emotion, 'Well, Henri, you are
loyal, noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.'
"These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition
of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to
place herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners,
and the look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly
assumed dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me
along almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a
moment's silence, 'I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you
love me?'--'Oh! yes.'--'Well, then, what will become of you?' "
At this point the women all looked at each other.
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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 Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: cometh on apace, and yet no cloth of Lincoln green in all our store.
It must be looked to, and that in quick season. Come, busk thee,
Little John! Stir those lazy bones of thine, for thou must get
thee straightway to our good gossip, the draper Hugh Longshanks
of Ancaster. Bid him send us straightway twentyscore yards of fair
cloth of Lincoln green; and mayhap the journey may take some of
the fat from off thy bones, that thou hast gotten from lazy living
at our dear Sheriff's."
"Nay," muttered Little John (for he had heard so much upon this
score that he was sore upon the point), "nay, truly, mayhap I have
more flesh upon my joints than I once had, yet, flesh or no flesh,
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
