| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: had always avoided meeting her whenever possible. He had been
exceedingly grateful for all she had done for his people, his
church, and himself; but he had never thanked her in person.
Perhaps he had come for that purpose now. But Madeline did not
believe so.
Mention of Padre Marcos, sight of him, had always occasioned
Madeline a little indefinable shock; and now, as he stepped to
the porch, a shrunken, stooped, and sad-faced man, she was
startled.
The padre bowed low to her.
"Senora, will you grant me audience?" he asked, in perfect
The Light of Western Stars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: moment and then rapidly began to gather large rocks and
pile them within the entrance. He had almost closed the
aperture when the lion appeared upon the inside -- a very
ferocious and angry lion that pawed and clawed at the rocks
and uttered mighty roars that caused the earth to tremble;
but roars did not frighten Tarzan of the Apes. At Kala's
shaggy breast he had closed his infant eyes in sleep upon
countless nights in years gone by to the savage chorus of
similar roars. Scarcely a day or night of his jungle life -- and
practically all his life had been spent in the jungle -- had
he not heard the roaring of hungry lions, or angry lions,
Tarzan the Untamed |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: to whom Mr. Bird at once ceded the right of pre-emption. Stark betrayed
such visible anxiety that the vendor, Smith, declined setting a price.
Soon after Sir C. Anderson, of Lea (author of Ancient Models), came
in and took away the book to collate, but brought it back in the morning
having found it imperfect in the middle, and offered L5 for it.
Sir Charles had no book of reference to guide him to its value.
But in the meantime, Stark had employed a friend to obtain for him
the refusal of it, and had undertaken to give for it a little more than
any sum Sir Charles might offer. On finding that at least L5 could be
got for it, Smith went to the chemist and gave him two guineas, and then
sold it to Stark's agent for seven guineas. Stark took it to London,
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: centuries incarnate in him for whom the world was waiting.
To me one of the things in history the most to be regretted is that
the Christ's own renaissance, which has produced the Cathedral at
Chartres, the Arthurian cycle of legends, the life of St. Francis
of Assisi, the art of Giotto, and Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, was not
allowed to develop on its own lines, but was interrupted and
spoiled by the dreary classical Renaissance that gave us Petrarch,
and Raphael's frescoes, and Palladian architecture, and formal
French tragedy, and St. Paul's Cathedral, and Pope's poetry, and
everything that is made from without and by dead rules, and does
not spring from within through some spirit informing it. But
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