| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: "Oh yes, I do," said the pastor, genially, "I think her a very
capricious girl; a little spoilt by her parents, who turned her head
with the religious ideas I have just revealed to you."
Minna shook her head in a way that gently expressed contradiction.
"Poor girl!" continued the old man, "her parents bequeathed to her
that fatal exaltation of soul which misleads mystics and renders them
all more or less mad. She subjects herself to fasts which horrify poor
David. The good old man is like a sensitive plant which quivers at the
slightest breeze, and glows under the first sun-ray. His mistress,
whose incomprehensible language has become his, is the breeze and the
sun-ray to him; in his eyes her feet are diamonds and her brow is
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: "Your witchery was all in vain: he's gone off," he said, grinning
with malignant joy.
His wife remained mute, but her chin quivered. Savely undressed
slowly, clambered over his wife, and lay down next to the wall.
"To-morrow I'll let Father Nikodim know what sort of wife you
are!" he muttered, curling himself up.
Raissa turned her face to him and her eyes gleamed.
"The job's enough for you, and you can look for a wife in the
forest, blast you!" she said. "I am no wife for you, a clumsy
lout, a slug-a-bed, God forgive me!"
"Come, come . . . go to sleep!"
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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 Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: half-growl of the lion at bay.
Instantly Memba Sasa and Mavrouki dropped back to me. We all
peered ahead. One of the boys made her out first, crouched under
a bush thirty-two yards away. Even as I raised the rifle she saw
us and charged. I caught her in the chest before she had come ten
feet. The heavy bullet stopped her dead. Then she recovered and
started forward slowly, very weak, but game to the last. Another
shot finished her.
The remarkable point of this incident was the action of the
little Springfield bullet. Evidently the very high velocity of
this bullet from its shock to the nervous system had delivered a
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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 The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: shabbiness, and the world that let me go on to a university
education intimated very plainly that there was not a thing beyond
the primary needs that my stimulated imagination might demand that
it would not be an effort for me to secure. A certain aggressive
radicalism against the ruling and propertied classes followed almost
naturally from my circumstances. It did not at first connect itself
at all with the perception of a planless disorder in human affairs
that had been forced upon me by the atmosphere of my upbringing, nor
did it link me in sympathy with any of the profounder realities of
poverty. It was a personal independent thing. The dingier people
one saw in the back streets and lower quarters of Bromstead and
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