| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: Allah, which for three centuries had heard the name of Christ,
could not hold the throng that poured in to see the ceremony.
Hidalgos in their velvet mantles, with their good swords at their
sides, swarmed like ants, and were so tightly packed in among the
pillars that they had not room to bend the knees, which never
bent save to God. Charming peasant girls, in the basquina that
defines the luxuriant outlines of their figures, lent an arm to
white-haired old men. Young men, with eyes of fire, walked beside
aged crones in holiday array. Then came couples tremulous with
joy, young lovers led thither by curiosity, newly-wedded folk;
children timidly clasping each other by the hand. This throng, so
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: that it was Chum Frink.
Frink stopped, focused his vision, and spoke with gravity:
"There's another fool. George Babbitt. Lives for renting howshes--houses.
Know who I am? I'm traitor to poetry. I'm drunk. I'm talking too much. I
don't care. Know what I could 've been? I could 've been a Gene Field or a
James Whitcomb Riley. Maybe a Stevenson. I could 've. Whimsies.
'Magination. Lissen. Lissen to this. Just made it up:
Glittering summery meadowy noise
Of beetles and bums and respectable boys.
Hear that? Whimzh--whimsy. I made that up. I don't know what it means!
Beginning good verse. Chile's Garden Verses. And whadi write? Tripe!
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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 Sportsman by Xenophon: [4] For the poison method see Pollux, v. 82; Plin. "H. N." viii. 27.
In some cases the custom is to construct large circular pits of some
depth, leaving a single pillar of earth in the centre, on the top of
which at nightfall they set a goat fast-bound, and hedge the pit about
with timber, so as to prevent the wild beasts seeing over, and without
a portal of admission. What happens then is this: the wild beasts,
hearing the bleating in the night, keep scampering round the barrier,
and finding no passage, leap over it, and are caught.[5]
[5] See "Tales from the Fjeld," Sir George W. Dasent, "Father Bruin in
the Corner."
XII
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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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: then you begin to feel very thirsty, and cry, "Oh, if there were
but springs and brooks in the Downs, as there are at home!" But
all the hollows are as dry as the hill tops. There is not a
brook, or the mark of a watercourse, in one of them. You are like
the Ancient Mariner in the poem, with
"Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink."
To get that you must go down and down, hundreds of feet, to the
green meadows through which silver Itchen glides toward the sea.
There you stand upon the bridge, and watch the trout in water so
crystal-clear that you see every weed and pebble as if you looked
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