| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: was she to Maximilian, or what HAD she been? For, by the tear
which I had once seen him drop upon this miniature when he believed
himself unobserved, I conjectured that her dark tresses were
already laid low, and her name among the list of vanished things.
Probably she was his mother, for the dress was rich with pearls,
and evidently that of a person in the highest rank of court
beauties. I sighed as I thought of the stern melancholy of her
son, if Maximilian were he, as connected, probably, with the fate
and fortunes of this majestic beauty; somewhat haughty, perhaps, in
the expression of her fine features, but still noble--generous--
confiding. Laying the picture on the table, I awoke Maximilian,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: killed a devil two hundred feet high, and only four feet thick, that
ravaged all the country; the peasants had a great desire to throw
the dead carcase from the top of a rock, but could not with all
their force remove it from the place, but the monk drew it after him
with all imaginable ease and pushed it down. This story was
followed by another, of a young devil that became a religious of the
famous monastery of Aba Gatima. The good father would have favoured
me with more relations of the same kind, if I had been in the humour
to have heard them, but, interrupting him, I told him that all these
relations confirmed what we had found by experience, that the monks
of Abyssinia were no improper company for the devil.
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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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Ham. Being thus benetted round with Villaines,
Ere I could make a Prologue to my braines,
They had begun the Play. I sate me downe,
Deuis'd a new Commission, wrote it faire,
I once did hold it as our Statists doe,
A basenesse to write faire; and laboured much
How to forget that learning: but Sir now,
It did me Yeomans seriuce: wilt thou know
The effects of what I wrote?
Hor. I, good my Lord
Ham. An earnest Coniuration from the King,
Hamlet |
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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: fire to wait, and after long, long years I should see that all was for the
best? That time has come sooner than we hoped. Last week in Rome I was
married to the best, noblest, most large-hearted of men. We are now in
Florence together. You don't know how beautiful all life is to me. I know
now that the old passion was only a girl's foolish dream. My husband is
the first man I have ever truly loved. He loves me and understands me as
no other man ever could. I am thankful that my dream was broken; God had
better things in store for me. I don't hate that woman any more; I love
every one! How are you, dear? We shall come and see you as soon as we
arrive in England. I always think of you so happy in your great work and
helping other people. I don't think now it is terrible to be a woman; it
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