| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: Jean-Francois Tascheron, who thenceforth attached himself to me as his
benefactress. How did the affection I felt for him become a guilty
one? I think myself excused from explaining this. Perhaps it could be
shown that the purest sentiments by which we act in this world were
insensibly diverted from their course by untold sacrifices, by reasons
arising from our human frailty, by many causes which might appear to
dismiss the evil of my sin. But even if the noblest affections moved
me, was I less guilty? Rather let me confess that I, who by education,
by position in the world, might consider myself superior to the youth
my father confided to me, and from whom I was separated by the natural
delicacy of our sex,--I listened, fatally, to the promptings of the
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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 Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: you don't consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that
before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or
do something or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the
Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at
the king of France's expense. - I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily:
really I had forgot that resource.
Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity - or
what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down
stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to
think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?
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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 Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: And gave them presents of embroidered vests,
And velvet mantles with rich ermine lined,
And rings and jewels of the rarest kind.
Then he departed with them o'er the sea
Into the lovely land of Italy,
Whose loveliness was more resplendent made
By the mere passing of that cavalcade,
With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, and the stir
Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur.
And lo! among the menials, in mock state,
Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait,
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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 Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: Guitar in hand, alternately puffing at his pipe and singing, a
brandy-glass upon his head, the greybeard began the national dance
amid loud shouts from the merry-makers.
What will not people devise in merry mood? They even began to disguise
their faces till they did not look like human beings. On such
occasions one would dress himself as a Jew, another as the Devil: they
would begin by kissing each other, and end by seizing each other by
the hair. God be with them! you laughed till you held your sides. They
dressed themselves in Turkish and Tatar garments. All upon them glowed
like a conflagration, and then they began to joke and play
pranks. . . .
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
