| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: Fontaine, a prey to the most violent struggle that can torture the
heart of a young girl, reaped the richest harvest of anguish that
prejudice and narrow-mindedness ever sowed in a human soul. Her face,
but just now fresh and velvety, was streaked with yellow lines and red
patches; the paleness of her cheeks seemed every now and then to turn
green. Hoping to hide her despair from her sisters, she would laugh as
she pointed out some ridiculous dress or passer-by; but her laughter
was spasmodic. She was more deeply hurt by their unspoken compassion
than by any satirical comments for which she might have revenged
herself. She exhausted her wit in trying to engage them in a
conversation, in which she tried to expend her fury in senseless
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: lane rather, running between endless piles of warehouses. She
hurried down it to gain the suburbs, for she lived out in the
country. It was a long, tiresome walk through the outskirts of
the town, where the dwelling-houses were,--long rows of two-story
bricks drabbled with soot-stains. It was two years since she had
been in the town. Remembering this, and the reason why she had
shunned it, she quickened her pace, her face growing stiller than
before. One might have fancied her a slave putting on a mask,
fearing to meet her master. The town, being unfamiliar to her,
struck her newly. She saw the expression on its face better. It
was a large trading city, compactly built, shut in by hills. It
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: a superior sort of housemaid. She could get through a sonata, she
wrote a pretty English hand, knew French grammar and orthography--a
complete commercial education, in short. She was impatient enough to
be married and leave the paternal roof, finding it as dull at home as
a lieutenant finds the nightwatch at sea; at the same time, it should
be said that her watch lasted through the whole twenty-four hours.
Desroches or Cochin junior, a notary or a lifeguardsman, or a sham
English lord,--any husband would have suited her. As she so obviously
knew nothing of life, I took pity upon her, I determined to reveal the
great secret of it. But, pooh! the Matifats shut their doors on me.
The bourgeois and I shall never understand each other."
|
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 Cratylus by Plato: digression, was given to justice for the reasons which I have mentioned.
HERMOGENES: I think, Socrates, that you are not improvising now; you must
have heard this from some one else.
SOCRATES: And not the rest?
HERMOGENES: Hardly.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let me go on in the hope of making you believe in
the originality of the rest. What remains after justice? I do not think
that we have as yet discussed courage (andreia),--injustice (adikia), which
is obviously nothing more than a hindrance to the penetrating principle
(diaiontos), need not be considered. Well, then, the name of andreia seems
to imply a battle;--this battle is in the world of existence, and according
|
