| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: these, to the benefit of all Greece, he kept himself in continual
readiness, and his city also in proper training, foreseeing from far
before what would happen.
And, first of all, the Athenians being accustomed to divide amongst
themselves the revenue proceeding from the silver mines at Laurium, he
was the only man that dared propose to the people that this distribution
should cease, and that with the money ships should be built to make war
against the Aeginetans, who were the most flourishing people in all
Greece, and by the number of their ships held the sovereignty of the
sea; and Themistocles thus was more easily able to persuade them,
avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or the Persians, who were at
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: night, and his hopes had seemed as many as its stars, each
evening had brought its new problem and its renewed
distress. But nothing, as yet, had approached the blank
misery of mind with which he now set himself to face the
fresh questions confronting him.
Sophy Viner had not shown herself at dinner, so that he had
had no glimpse of her in her new character, and no means of
divining the real nature of the tie between herself and Owen
Leath. One thing, however, was clear: whatever her real
feelings were, and however much or little she had at stake,
if she had made up her mind to marry Owen she had more than
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: the spell of that timid curiosity which impels women to seek perilous
excitement, to gaze at chained tigers and boa-constrictors, shuddering
all the while because the barriers between them are so weak. Although
the little old man's back was bent like a day-laborer's, it was easy
to see that he must formerly have been of medium height. His excessive
thinness, the slenderness of his limbs, proved that he had always been
of slight build. He wore black silk breeches which hung about his
fleshless thighs in folds, like a lowered veil. An anatomist would
instinctively have recognized the symptoms of consumption in its
advanced stages, at sight of the tiny legs which served to support
that strange frame. You would have said that they were a pair of
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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 Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: silken shell, the shape and size of an acorn-cup. This is where
she sits, with her paunch contained in the round cavity and her
fore-legs resting on the ledge, ready to leap. The lazy creature
loves this position and rarely stations herself head downwards on
the web, as do the others. Cosily ensconced in the hollow of her
cup, she awaits the approaching game.
Her web, which is vertical, as is the rule among the Epeirae, is of
a fair size and always very near the bowl wherein the Spider takes
her ease. Moreover, it touches the bowl by means of an angular
extension; and the angle always contains one spoke which the
Epeira, seated, so to speak, in her crater, has constantly under
The Life of the Spider |
