| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran: are liars.
And the poets do those follow who go astray! Dost thou not see
that they wander distraught in every vale? and that they say that
which they do not do? save those who believe, and do right, and
remember God much, and defend themselves after they are wronged; but
those who do wrong shall know with what a turn they shall be turned.
THE CHAPTER OF THE ANT
(XXVII. Mecca.)
IN the name of the merciful and compassionate God.
TA SIN. Those are the signs of the Koran and the perspicuous Book; a
guidance and glad tidings to the believers, who are steadfast at
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: actual powers to capture her; he promised her wealth, he also promised
her the license her mother had enjoyed; besides this, he offered his
prospective father-in-law an enormous rental, five hundred francs a
year, for his inn, until he could buy him out, trusting to an
agreement he had made with Monsieur Brunet to pay these costs by notes
on stamped paper. By trade a journeyman tool-maker, this gnome worked
for the wheelwrights when work was plentiful, but he also hired
himself out for any extra labor which was well paid. Though he
possessed, unknown to the whole neighborhood, eighteen hundred francs
now in Gaubertin's hands, he lived like a beggar, slept in a barn, and
gleaned at the harvests. He wore Gaubertin's receipt for his money
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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 Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: he must act quickly.
Scarcely had he touched the sleek hide of the deer with a
momentum that sent the animal to its knees than he had
grasped a horn in either hand, and with a single quick wrench
twisted the animal's neck completely round, until he felt the
vertebrae snap beneath his grip.
The lion was roaring in rage close behind him as he swung
the deer across his shoulder, and, grasping a foreleg between
his strong teeth, leaped for the nearest of the lower branches
that swung above his head.
With both hands he grasped the limb, and, at the instant
The Beasts of Tarzan |
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 In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: form of poisoning with the fruit of the eva, which offers to the
native suicide a cruel but deliberate death, and gives time for
those decencies of the last hour, to which he attaches such
remarkable importance. The coffin can thus be at hand, the pigs
killed, the cry of the mourners sounding already through the house;
and then it is, and not before, that the Marquesan is conscious of
achievement, his life all rounded in, his robes (like Caesar's)
adjusted for the final act. Praise not any man till he is dead,
said the ancients; envy not any man till you hear the mourners,
might be the Marquesan parody. The coffin, though of late
introduction, strangely engages their attention. It is to the
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