| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: at the foot; it was like a bed in a hospital. By the bed-head stood a
rickety cupboard on four feet with a door that continually rattled
with a sound like castanets. Three chairs and a couple of straw-
bottomed armchairs stood about the room, and on a low chest of drawers
in walnut wood stood a basin, and a ewer of obsolete pattern with a
lid, which was kept in place by a leaden rim round the top of the
vessel. This completed the list of the furniture.
The grate was empty. All the apparatus required for shaving lay about
in front of an old mirror suspended above the painted stone chimney-
piece by a bit of string. The floor was clean and carefully swept, but
it was worn and splintered in various places, and there were hollows
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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 Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: fixed and full of inexpressible grief, seemed for
the hundredth time to be skimming the same
page whilst her thoughts were far away.
At that moment somebody stirred behind a
shrub. I leaped from the balcony on to the
sward. An invisible hand seized me by the
shoulder.
"Aha!" said a rough voice: "caught! . . .
I'll teach you to be entering princesses' rooms at
night!"
"Hold him fast!" exclaimed another, spring-
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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 Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: You're paler than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a
bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a
flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Wrangle run
some....Well, perhaps you've more to tell me than I've got to
tell you."
Briefly, in few words, Jane outlined the circumstances of her
undoing in the weeks of his absence.
Under his beard and bronze she saw his face whiten in terrible
wrath.
"Lassiter--what held you back?"
No time in the long period of fiery moments and sudden shocks had
Riders of the Purple Sage |
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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: leave me this husband who is so kind, so obliging, so little fault-
finding, and who is beginning to stand in awe of me."
"You are honest, and I love you the better for it," said Thaddeus,
taking her hand which she yielded to him, and kissing it. "In solemn
moments like these there is unspeakable satisfaction in finding a
woman without hypocrisy. It is possible to converse with you. Let us
look to the future. Suppose that God does not grant your prayer,--and
no one cries to him more than I do, 'Leave me my friend!' Yes, these
fifty nights have not weakened me; if thirty more days and nights are
needed I can give them while you sleep,--yes, I will tear him from
death if, as the doctors say, nursing can save him. But suppose that
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