| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: were, beds of lava along the hills swearing to a cloud shadow,
while the sky was polished like a precious stone--these, and many
other beautiful and marvellous but empty shows the great desert
displayed lavishly, with the glitter and inconsequence of a
dream. Senor Johnson sat on his horse in the hot sun, his chin
in his band, his elbow on the pommel, watching it all with grave,
unshifting eyes.
Occasionally, belated, he saw the stars, the wonderful desert
stars, blazing clear and unflickering, like the flames of
candles. Or the moon worked her necromancies, hemming him in 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 Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: approaching horses reached him.
"Bet your life. Got your own broncs, too. Sheriff Burns called up
Daniels not to let any horses go out from his corral to anybody
without his O.K. I happened to be cinching at the time the 'phone
message came, so I concluded that order wasn't for me, and lit
out kinder unceremonious."
Hastily the fugitives donned the new costumes and dominos, turned
their notes over to Denver, and swung to their saddles.
"Good luck!" the punchers called after them, and Denver added an
ironical promise that the foreman had no doubt he would keep.
"I'll look out for Nora--Darling." There was a drawling pause
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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 Dracula by Bram Stoker: Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle,
proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the daytime, and when wreathed
with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough, but now,
some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites
turning to rust and their greens to browns, when the spider and the beetle
had resumed their accustomed dominance, when the time-discolored stone,
and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass,
and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle,
the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.
It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life, animal life, was not the only
thing which could pass away.
Dracula |
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 Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: the stakes are millions or the galleys, political triumphs or
dishonor. Still, the green cloth is not long enough for all the
players, and a certain kind of genius is required to play the
game. I say nothing of religious beliefs, nor yet of feelings;
what concerns us now is the running-gear of the great machine of
gold and iron, and its practical results with which men's lives
are occupied. Dear child of my heart, if you share my horror at
this criminal theory of the world, society will present to your
mind, as it does to all sane minds, the opposite theory of duty.
Yes, you will see that man owes himself to man in a thousand
differing ways. To my mind, the duke and peer owe far more to the
The Lily of the Valley |
