| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: command are yet themselves not amenable to his spiritual power,
for look, these rats that would come to his call, just as
from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going
and to that poor mother's cry, though they come to him,
they run pell-mell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur.
We have other matters before us, other dangers, other fears,
and that monster. . .He has not used his power over
the brute world for the only or the last time tonight.
So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has
given us opportunity to cry `check'in some ways in this
chess game, which we play for the stake of human souls.
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: husbands, and so obtain their way, but I, at any rate, am free.
If I chose, Nucingen would cover me with gold, but I would rather
weep on the breast of a man whom I can respect. Ah! tonight, M.
de Marsay will no longer have a right to think of me as a woman
whom he has paid." She tried to conceal her tears from him,
hiding her face in her hands; Eugene drew them away and looked at
her; she seemed to him sublime at that moment.
"It is hideous, is it not," she cried, "to speak in a breath of
money and affection. You cannot love me after this," she added.
The incongruity between the ideas of honor which make women so
great, and the errors in conduct which are forced upon them by
Father Goriot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: She did not know that a runner had been dispatched to the distant
village of The Sheik to barter with him for a ransom. She did
not know, nor did Kovudoo, that the runner had never reached
his destination--that he had fallen in with the safari of
Jenssen and Malbihn and with the talkativeness of a native to
other natives had unfolded his whole mission to the black servants
of the two Swedes. These had not been long in retailing the matter
to their masters, and the result was that when the runner left
their camp to continue his journey he had scarce passed from
sight before there came the report of a rifle and he rolled
lifeless into the underbrush with a bullet in his back.
The Son of Tarzan |
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 Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: Over many a tangled spray,
All heart-broke, I heard her say:
'O my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.'
Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, 'What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?'
'I am set to light the ground,
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
