| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: two ladies, addressing Prince Vasili and pointing to an inlaid
portfolio she held in her hand. "All I know is that his real will is
in his writing table, and this is a paper he has forgotten...."
She tried to pass Anna Mikhaylovna, but the latter sprang so as to
bar her path.
"I know, my dear, kind princess," said Anna Mikhaylovna, seizing the
portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily.
"Dear princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je
vous en conjure..."
The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the
portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if the
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: host, but the painter laid a finger on his lips with an air of
mystery, and the young man, keenly interested, kept silence, hoping
that sooner or later some word of the conversation might enable him to
guess the name of the old man, whose wealth and genius were
sufficiently attested by the respect which Porbus showed him, and by
the marvels of art heaped together in the picturesque apartment.
Poussin, observing against the dark panelling of the wall a
magnificent portrait of a woman, exclaimed aloud, "What a magnificent
Giorgione!"
"No," remarked the old man, "that is only one of my early daubs."
"Zounds!" cried Poussin naively; "are you the king of painters?"
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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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: sad-coloured heifer, hackles of a cock or capon, several coloured silk
and crewel to make the body of the fly, the feathers of a drake's head,
black or brown sheep's wool, or hog's wool, or hair, thread of gold and
of silver; silk of several colours, especially sad-coloured, to make the
fly's head: and there be also other coloured feathers, both of little birds
and of speckled fowl: I say, having those with him in a bag, and trying
to make a fly, though he miss at first, yet shall he at last hit it better,
even to such a perfection as none can well teach him And if he hit to
make his fly right, and have the luck to hit, also, where there is store of
Trouts, a dark day, and a right wind, he will catch such store of them, as
will encourage him to grow more and more in love with the art of fly-
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: royal roads to knowledge, and to the fame and wealth which might be
got out of knowledge; who meddled with vain dreams about the occult
sciences, alchemy, astrology, magic, the cabala, and so forth, who
were reputed magicians, courted and feared for awhile, and then, too
often, died sad deaths.
Such had been, in the century before, the famous Dr. Faust--Faustus,
who was said to have made a compact with Satan--actually one of the
inventors of printing--immortalised in Goethe's marvellous poem.
Such, in the first half of the sixteenth century, was Cornelius
Agrippa--a doctor of divinity and a knight-at-arms; secret-service
diplomatist to the Emperor Maximilian in Austria; astrologer, though
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