| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: resistance, they would pardon my final overthrow. But, child as I was,
could I have the grandeur of soul that scorns the scorn of others?
Moreover, I may have felt the promptings of several social vices whose
power was increased by my longings.
About the end of the second year my father and mother came to Paris.
My brother had written me the day of their arrival. He lived in Paris,
but had never been to see me. My sisters, he said, were of the party;
we were all to see Paris together. The first day we were to dine in
the Palais-Royal, so as to be near the Theatre-Francais. In spite of
the intoxication such a programme of unhoped-for delights excited, my
joy was dampened by the wind of a coming storm, which those who are
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: his ignorance he had thought these the runways of animals,
whereas they were the age-old highways of the head-hunters.
Now they presented a comparatively quick and easy approach
to the destination of the mutineers, but so narrow a
one as soon to convince Theriere that it was not feasible for
him to move back and forth along the flank of his column.
He had tried it once, but it so greatly inconvenienced and
retarded the heavily laden men that he abandoned the effort,
remaining near the center of the cavalcade until the new camp
was reached.
Here he found a fair-sized space about a clear and plentiful
The Mucker |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: to see either the place they were leaving or that to which they were
going.
A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his
regiment as much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has
walked, whatever strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches,
just as a sailor is always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and
rigging of his ship, so the soldier always has around him the same
comrades, the same ranks, the same sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the
same company dog Jack, and the same commanders. The sailor rarely
cares to know the latitude in which his ship is sailing, but on the
day of battle- heaven knows how and whence- a stern note of which
War and Peace |
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 Master of the World by Jules Verne: action. Smoke had floated above the mountain and once the country
folk passing near had heard subterranean noises, unexplainable
rumblings. A glow in the sky had crowned the height at night.
When the wind blew the smoky cloud eastward toward Pleasant Garden, a
few cinders and ashes drifted down from it. And finally one stormy
night pale flames, reflected from the clouds above the summit, cast
upon the district below a sinister, warning light.
In presence of these strange phenomena, it is not astonishing that
the people of the surrounding district became seriously disquieted.
And to the disquiet was joined an imperious need of knowing the true
condition of the mountain. The Carolina newspapers had flaring
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