| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: We have learnt something from the novices: let us now look into
the matter of their elders and see what additional task the needs
of age impose upon them.
July comes and gives me exactly what I wish for. While the new
inhabitants are twisting their ropes on the rosemaries in the
enclosure, one evening, by the last gleams of twilight, I discover
a splendid Spider, with a mighty belly, just outside my door. This
one is a matron; she dates back to last year; her majestic
corpulence, so exceptional at this season, proclaims the fact. I
know her for the Angular Epeira (Epeira angulata, WALCK.), clad in
grey and girdled with two dark stripes that meet in a point at the
The Life of the Spider |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: from his energetic struggle when clambering about in the
snowdrift, he knew that this warmth would not last long and
that he had no strength left to warm himself again by moving
about, for he felt as tired as a horse when it stops and
refuses to go further in spite of the whip, and its master sees
that it must be fed before it can work again. The foot in the
boot with a hole in it had already grown numb, and he could no
longer feel his big toe. Besides that, his whole body began to
feel colder and colder.
The thought that he might, and very probably would, die that
night occurred to him, but did not seem particularly unpleasant
Master and Man |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: evidently unused to analyzing her aesthetic emotions, and
the tumultuous rush of the drama seemed to have left her in
a state of panting wonder, as though it had been a storm or
some other natural cataclysm. She had no literary or
historic associations to which to attach her impressions:
her education had evidently not comprised a course in Greek
literature. But she felt what would probably have been
unperceived by many a young lady who had taken a first in
classics: the ineluctable fatality of the tale, the dread
sway in it of the same mysterious "luck" which pulled the
threads of her own small destiny. It was not literature to
|
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 Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: health.
This mighty affair is now happily over, and my Girls are OUT. As
the moment approached for our departure, you can have no idea how
the sweet Creatures trembled with fear and expectation. Before
the Carriage drove to the door, I called them into my dressing-
room, and as soon as they were seated thus addressed them. "My
dear Girls the moment is now arrived when I am to reap the
rewards of all my Anxieties and Labours towards you during your
Education. You are this Evening to enter a World in which you
will meet with many wonderfull Things; Yet let me warn you
against suffering yourselves to be meanly swayed by the Follies
Love and Friendship |
