| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: to Clementine, and listened to her thanks without accepting them; he
seemed both dumb and deaf. To himself he was saying, "She shall owe
his life to me," and he wrote the thought as it were in letters of
fire on the walls of Adam's room. On the fifteenth day Clementine was
forced to give up the nursing, lest she should utterly break down. Paz
was unwearied. At last, towards the end of August, Bianchon, the
family physician, told Clementine that Adam was out of danger.
"Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me," he said; "without his
friend, Comte Paz, we could not have saved him."
The day after the meeting of Paz and Clementine in the kiosk, the
Marquis de Ronquerolles came to see his nephew. He was on the eve of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: or a good run of maple syrup was an occasion for general rejoicing. They found
the honey in hollow trees, and they obtained the maple sugar in two ways. When
the sap came up in the maple trees a hole was bored in the trees about a foot
from the ground and a small tube, usually made from a piece of alder, was
inserted in the hole. Through this the sap was carried into a vessel which was
placed under the tree. This sap was boiled down in kettles. If the Indians had
no kettles they made the frost take the place of heat in preparing the sugar.
They used shallow vessels made of bark, and these were filled with water and
the maple sap. It was left to freeze over night and in the morning the ice was
broken and thrown away. The sugar did not freeze. When this process had been
repeated several times the residue was very good maple sugar.
Betty Zane |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does
not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning
and come out with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred
pounds. But he was quite easy and sneering. `Set your mind at
rest,' says he, `I will stay with you till the banks open and cash
the cheque myself.' So we all set of, the doctor, and the child's
father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the
night in my chambers; and next day, when we had breakfasted, went
in a body to the bank. I gave in the cheque myself, and said I
had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it.
The cheque was genuine."
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Timaeus by Plato: former three and to one another. Thus arises the following progression:--
Moon 1, Sun 2, Venus 3, Mercury 4, Mars 8, Jupiter 9, Saturn 27. This
series of numbers is the compound of the two Pythagorean ratios, having the
same intervals, though not in the same order, as the mixture which was
originally divided in forming the soul of the world.
Plato was struck by the phenomenon of Mercury, Venus, and the Sun appearing
to overtake and be overtaken by one another. The true reason of this,
namely, that they lie within the circle of the earth's orbit, was unknown
to him, and the reason which he gives--that the two former move in an
opposite direction to the latter--is far from explaining the appearance of
them in the heavens. All the planets, including the sun, are carried round
|
