| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: hieroglyphics of this shorthand, the result of impatience and a frenzy
of passion. Carried away by his feelings, he had written without being
conscious of the irregularity of words too slow to express his
thoughts. He must have been compelled to copy these chaotic attempts,
for the lines often ran into each other; but he was also afraid
perhaps of not having sufficiently disguised his feelings, and at
first, at any rate, he had probably written his love-letters twice
over.
It required all the fervency of my devotion to his memory, and the
sort of fanaticism which comes of such a task, to enable me to divine
and restore the meaning of the five letters that here follow. These
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath the delicate laces
and brilliant smile. There was no warmth, no brilliancy, no
summer for this woman; so the stupor and vacancy had time to
gnaw into her face perpetually. She was young, too, though no
one guessed it; so the gnawing was the fiercer.
She lay quiet in the dark corner, listening, through the
monotonous din and uncertain glare of the works, to the dull
plash of the rain in the far distance, shrinking back whenever
the man Wolfe happened to look towards her. She knew, in spite
of all his kindness, that there was that in her face and form
which made him loathe the sight of her. She felt by instinct,
Life in the Iron-Mills |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "I'd better begin by going back a little," he went on sullenly. "I
suppose you know I was married to Ida Harrington about five years
ago. She was a good girl, and I thought a lot of her. But her
father opposed the marriage - he'd never liked me, and he refused
to make any sort of settlement.
"I had thought, of course, that there would be money, and it was a
bad day when I found out I'd made a mistake. My sister was wild
with disappointment. We were pretty hard up, my sister and I."
I was watching Alison. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap,
and she was staring out of the window at the cheerless roof below.
She had set her lips a little, but that was all.
The Man in Lower Ten |
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 Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: I.
The country of the Indians, as it is called, is vast and
populous, lying far beyond Egypt. On the side of Egypt it is
washed by seas and navigable gulphs, but on the mainland it
marcheth with the borders of Persia, a land formerly darkened
with the gloom of idolatry, barbarous to the last degree, and
wholly given up to unlawful practices. But when "the only-
begotten Son of God, which is in the bosom of the Father," being
grieved to see his own handiwork in bondage unto sin, was moved
with compassion for the same, and shewed himself amongst us
without sin, and, without leaving his Father's throne, dwelt for
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