| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: marriage should take place later, in obedience to Mme. de Beauseant's
expressed wish. He went so far as to enlist the Marquise's nobleness
and pride and all the great qualities of her nature to help him to
succeed in this compassionate design. He would write a letter at once
to allay her suspicions. /A letter!/ For a woman with the most
exquisite feminine perception, as well as the intuition of passionate
love, a letter in itself was a sentence of death.
So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper
folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow.
A mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot,
wrapping her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush to her
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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 Call of the Wild by Jack London: again, now, running free in the open, the unpacked earth
underfoot, the wide sky overhead.
They stopped by a running stream to drink, and, stopping, Buck
remembered John Thornton. He sat down. The wolf started on
toward the place from where the call surely came, then returned to
him, sniffing noses and making actions as though to encourage him.
But Buck turned about and started slowly on the back track. For
the better part of an hour the wild brother ran by his side,
whining softly. Then he sat down, pointed his nose upward, and
howled. It was a mournful howl, and as Buck held steadily on his
way he heard it grow faint and fainter until it was lost in 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 Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: struck us, and our centre bent in like a bow beneath the weight
of their rush -- it parted, and had not the ten thousand men
in reserve charged down to its support it must have been utterly
destroyed. As for Good's three squares, they were swept backwards
like boats upon an incoming tide, and the foremost one was burst
into and lost half its remaining men. But the effort was too
fierce and terrible to last. Suddenly the battle came, as it
were, to a turning-point, and for a minute or two stood still.
Then it began to move towards Sorais' camp. Just then, too,
Nasta's fierce and almost invincible highlanders, either because
they were disheartened by their losses or by way of a ruse, fell
Allan Quatermain |
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 Marie by H. Rider Haggard: Maraisfontein.
"Now," I said to Hans, shaking loose the reins, "keep up if you can!"
Away sped the mare till the keen air of the night sung past my ears, and
behind her strained the good roan horse with the Hottentot monkey on its
back. Oh! what a ride was that!
Further I have gone for a like cause, but never at such speed, for I
knew the strength of the beasts and how long it would last them. Half
an hour of it they might endure; more, and at this pace they must
founder or die.
And yet such was the agony of my fear, that it seemed to me as though I
only crept along the ground like a tortoise.
Marie |
