| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: either. She looked with pity at the thin, hard-worked
laundresses, some already in consumption, who stood washing or
ironing with their thin arms in the fearfully hot front room,
which was always full of soapy steam and draughts from the
windows, and thought with horror that she might have shared the
same fate.
Katusha had begun to smoke some time before, and since the young
shopman had thrown her up she was getting more and more into the
habit of drinking. It was not so much the flavour of wine that
tempted her as the fact that it gave her a chance of forgetting
the misery she suffered, making her feel more unrestrained and
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: "Ah, I know!" he replied, looking at Jacquet. "Wasn't it a funeral
with thirteen mourning coaches, and only one mourner in the twelve
first? It was so droll we all noticed it--"
"Monsieur, take care, Monsieur Desmarets is with me; he might hear
you, and what you say is not seemly."
"I beg pardon, monsieur! you are quite right. Excuse me, I took you
for heirs. Monsieur," he continued, after consulting a plan of the
cemetery, "Madame Jules is in the rue Marechal Lefebre, alley No. 4,
between Mademoiselle Raucourt, of the Comedie-Francaise, and Monsieur
Moreau-Malvin, a butcher, for whom a handsome tomb in white marble has
been ordered, which will be one of the finest in the cemetery--"
Ferragus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: the scriveners, a good-natur'd, friendly, middle-ag'd man, a great
lover of poetry, reading all he could meet with, and writing some
that was tolerable; very ingenious in many little Nicknackeries,
and of sensible conversation.
Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way,
and afterward inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant.
But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion;
as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected
universal precision in everything said, or was for ever denying or
distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation.
He soon left us.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
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 The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: bordering on madness. However absurd may be the idea they uphold
or the goal they pursue, their convictions are so strong that all
reasoning is lost upon them. Contempt and persecution do not
affect them, or only serve to excite them the more. They
sacrifice their personal interest, their family--everything. The
very instinct of self-preservation is entirely obliterated in
them, and so much so that often the only recompense they solicit
is that of martyrdom. The intensity of their faith gives great
power of suggestion to their words. The multitude is always
ready to listen to the strong-willed man, who knows how to impose
himself upon it. Men gathered in a crowd lose all force of will,
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