| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: though his eyes had penetrated the jungle trees to the
figure of the hiding Belgian, fingering his rifle
behind the bole of the buttressed giant.
Werper did not dare advance--his cupidity would not
permit him to depart, and so he stood there, his rifle
ready in his hands, his eyes watching the trail before
him with catlike intensity.
But there was another who had seen the pouch and
recognized it, who did advance with Achmet Zek,
hovering above him, as silent and as sure as death
itself, and as the Arab, finding a little spot less
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: presented him with more intensity, thrust him out of his frame with
more art, as if there had been "treatment," of the consummate sort,
in his every shade and salience. The revulsion, for our friend,
had become, before he knew it, immense - this drop, in the act of
apprehension, to the sense of his adversary's inscrutable
manoeuvre. That meaning at least, while he gaped, it offered him;
for he could but gape at his other self in this other anguish, gape
as a proof that HE, standing there for the achieved, the enjoyed,
the triumphant life, couldn't be faced in his triumph. Wasn't the
proof in the splendid covering hands, strong and completely spread?
- so spread and so intentional that, in spite of a special verity
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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 Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: vague but copious import of Mrs. Gregory's announcement. The oracles,
moreover, continued.
"But she is undoubtedly very clever to come and see for herself," was
Mrs. Weguelin's next comment.
Mrs. Gregory's face, as she replied to her companion, took on a
censorious and superior expression. "You'll remember, Julia, that I told
Josephine St. Michael it was what they had to expect."
"But it was not Josephine, my dear, who at any time approved of taking
such a course. It was Eliza's whole doing."
It was fairly raining oracles round me, and they quite resembled, for all
the help and light they contained, their Delphic predecessors.
|
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 Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: "I have brought back to you your bulbs."
Cornelius's heart leaped with joy. He had not yet dared to
ask Rosa what she had done with the precious treasure which
he had intrusted to her.
"Oh, you have preserved them, then?"
"Did you not give them to me as a thing which was dear to
you?"
"Yes, but as I have given them to you, it seems to me that
they belong to you."
"They would have belonged to me after your death, but,
fortunately, you are alive now. Oh how I blessed his
The Black Tulip |
