| 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: sculpture, burned in the excess of light like the fantastic
figures in the red heart of a brazier. At the further end of the
church, above that blazing sea, rose the high altar like a
splendid dawn. All the glories of the golden lamps and silver
candlesticks, of banners and tassels, of the shrines of the
saints and votive offerings, paled before the gorgeous brightness
of the reliquary in which Don Juan lay. The blasphemer's body
sparkled with gems, and flowers, and crystal, with diamonds and
gold, and plumes white as the wings of seraphim; they had set it
up on the altar, where the pictures of Christ had stood. All
about him blazed a host of tall candles; the air quivered in the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: his castle and forbade him to visit his children? Well, many years
afterward, when the old Baron was dead and his son ruled in his
place, the new Baron Braun came to the house of Claus with his train
of knights and pages and henchmen and, dismounting from his charger,
bared his head humbly before the friend of children.
"My father did not know your goodness and worth," he said, "and
therefore threatened to hang you from the castle walls. But I have
children of my own, who long for a visit from Santa Claus, and I have
come to beg that you will favor them hereafter as you do other children."
Claus was pleased with this speech, for Castle Braun was the only
place he had never visited, and he gladly promised to bring presents
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship
or consented to a shady transaction; and he had lasted
well, outlasting in the end the conditions that had gone
to the making of his name. He had buried his wife (in
the Gulf of Petchili), had married off his daughter to
the man of her unlucky choice, and had lost more than
an ample competence in the crash of the notorious Tra-
vancore and Deccan Banking Corporation, whose down-
fall had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he
was sixty-five years old.
II
End of the Tether |
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 Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: strict injunctions never to approach Phutra or any other
Mahar city. They also made it perfectly plain that they
considered me a dangerous creature, and that having
wiped the slate clean in so far as they were under
obligations to me, they now considered me fair prey.
Should I again fall into their hands, they intimated it
would go ill with me.
They would not tell me in which direction Hooja had
set forth with Dian, so I departed from Phutra, filled
with bitterness against the Mahars, and rage toward the
Sly One who had once again robbed me of my greatest
Pellucidar |
