| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: apartment by another exit.
It was by chance that, in a deep set window, he
found her for whom he was searching. She sat looking
wistfully into space, an expression half sad upon her
beautiful face. She did not see him as he approached,
and he stood there for several moments watching her
dear profile, and the rising and falling of her bosom
over that true and loyal heart that had beaten so proud-
ly against all the power of a mighty throne for the
despised Outlaw of Torn.
He did not speak, but presently that strange, subtile
The Outlaw of Torn |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: cerna ejus in secula seculorum nisi resque-
n n
rit, et ad satisfactionem venerit. Amen.
os
Maledicat illum Deus Pater qui homi-
os
nem creavit. Maledicat illum Dei Filius qui pro homine passus est.
Maledicat
os
illum Spiritus Sanctus qui in baptismo ef-
os
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: again. Then one of them stooped down to stroke it, but thc
Serpent raised its head and put out its fangs and was about to
sting the child to death. So the Woodman seized his axe, and with
one stroke cut the Serpent in two. "Ah," said he,
"No gratitude from the wicked."
The Bald Man and the Fly
There was once a Bald Man who sat down after work on a hot
summer's day. A Fly came up and kept buzzing about his bald pate,
and stinging him from time to time. The Man aimed a blow at his
little enemy, but acks palm came on his head instead;
again the Fly tormented him, but this time the Man was wiser and
Aesop's Fables |
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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: habitually on the ground, where he seemed to be looking for something.
At four o'clock an old woman arrived, to take him Heaven knows where;
which she did by towing him along by the arm, as a young girl drags a
wilful goat which still wants to browse by the wayside. This old man
was a horrible thing to see.
In the afternoon of the day when Jules Desmarets left Paris, his
travelling-carriage, in which he was alone, passed rapidly through the
rue de l'Est, and came out upon the esplanade of the Observatoire at
the moment when the old man, leaning against a tree, had allowed his
cane to be taken from his hand amid the noisy vociferations of the
players, pacifically irritated. Jules, thinking that he recognized
Ferragus |
