| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: although their garments were dripping. A crowd of
officers coming for orders, and of soldiers running to ex-
ecute them, filled the great hall on the ground floor. There,
in a sudden eddy of the confused multitude, Michael and the
young girl were separated from each other.
Nadia ran distracted through the passages, calling her
companion, and asking to be taken to the Grand Duke. A
door into a room flooded with light opened before her.
She entered, and found herself suddenly face to face with
the man whom she had met at Ichim, whom she had seen
at Tomsk; face to face with the one whose villainous hand
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant
fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials
in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I
am saying.
Such was the natural state of the country, which was cultivated, as we may
well believe, by true husbandmen, who made husbandry their business, and
were lovers of honour, and of a noble nature, and had a soil the best in
the world, and abundance of water, and in the heaven above an excellently
attempered climate. Now the city in those days was arranged on this wise.
In the first place the Acropolis was not as now. For the fact is that a
single night of excessive rain washed away the earth and laid bare the
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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 The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the crowd, the torches, the confused din and the hush that
followed, the spectre of his kinsman reviled by that great
multitude,--all this, and, more than all, a perception of
tremendous ridicule in the whole scene, affected him with a sort
of mental inebriety. At that moment a voice of sluggish merriment
saluted Robin's ears; he turned instinctively, and just behind
the corner of the church stood the lantern-bearer, rubbing his
eyes, and drowsily enjoying the lad's amazement. Then he heard a
peal of laughter like the ringing of silvery bells; a woman
twitched his arm, a saucy eye met his, and he saw the lady of the
scarlet petticoat. A sharp, dry cachinnation appealed to his
The Snow Image |
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 Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: I am beginning to believe that they would strongly object
to soap, I am sure they would not wear new clothes, and I
hear them coming home from their work at dusk singing.
They are like little children or animals in their utter inability
to grasp the idea of a future; and after all, if you work all day
in God's sunshine, when evening comes you are pleasantly tired and
ready for rest and not much inclined to find fault with your lot.
I have not yet persuaded myself, however, that the women are happy.
They have to work as hard as the men and get less for it;
they have to produce offspring, quite regardless of times
and seasons <114> and the general fitness of things ; they
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
