| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: depth.
Would I have greater riches, I have but to walk a hundred yards
from my house, on the neighbouring plateau, once a shady forest,
today a dreary solitude where the Cricket browses and the Wheat-ear
flits from stone to stone. The love of lucre has laid waste the
land. Because wine paid handsomely, they pulled up the forest to
plant the vine. Then came the Phylloxera, the vine-stocks perished
and the once green table-land is now no more than a desolate
stretch where a few tufts of hardy grasses sprout among the
pebbles. This wasteland is the Lycosa's paradise: in an hour's
time, if need were, I should discover a hundred burrows within a
The Life of the Spider |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: enduring the needless torture of these doubts of which I am
accusing myself, every added day of love, yes, every single day,
will be a whole lifetime of bliss. So speak, and speak openly; do
not deceive me, it would be a crime. Tell me, do you wish for your
liberty? Have you thought of all that a man's life means? Is there
any regret in your mind? That /I/ should cause you a regret! I
should die of it. I have said it: I love you enough to set your
happiness above mine, your life before my own. Leave on one side,
if you can, the wealth of memories of our nine years' happiness,
that they may not influence your decision, but speak! I submit
myself to you as to God, the one Consoler who remains if you
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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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: MYRRHINA. Do the birds of the air feed him? Do the jackals share
their booty with him?
FIRST MAN. Every evening we bring him food. We do not think that
the birds of the air feed him.
MYRRHINA. Why do ye feed him? What profit have ye in so doing?
SECOND MAN. He is a very holy man. One of the gods whom he has
offended has made him mad. We think he has offended the moon.
MYRRHINA. Go and tell him that one who has come from Alexandria
desires to speak with him.
FIRST MAN. We dare not tell him. This hour he is praying to his
God. We pray thee to pardon us for not doing thy bidding.
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: repent, if a man may repent of that over which he has no control.
For I was a stranger in a strange land, and though my home was
there and my children were about me, the longing for my other home
was yet with me, and I could not put away the memory of that Lily
whom I had lost. Her ring was still upon my hand, but nothing else
of her remained to me. I did not know if she were married or
single, living or dead. The gulf between us widened with the
widening years, but still the thought of her went with me like my
shadow; it shone across the stormy love of Otomie, I remembered it
even in my children's kiss. And worst of all I despised myself for
these regrets. Nay, if the worst can have a worse, there was one
Montezuma's Daughter |
