| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: thought. His red face was covered with pimples, and his nails
indescribably filthy. When Herr Lehmann himself told Hans to get a hairpin
and clean them he said they were stained from birth because his mother had
always got so inky doing the accounts--and Sabina believed him and pitied
him.
Winter had come very early to Mindelbau. By the end of October the streets
were banked waist-high with snow, and the greater number of the "Cure
Guests," sick unto death of cold water and herbs, had departed in nothing
approaching peace. So the large salon was shut at Lehmann's and the
breakfast-room was all the accommodation the cafe afforded. Here the floor
had to be washed over, the tables rubbed, coffee-cups set out, each with
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: annoyance, yet unable always to control herself when her whole soul
was given to the care of her child, Henriette needed the support of a
friendship which might lighten the burden of her life, were it only by
diverting her husband's mind. Though I was now most impatient to rival
the career of my brother, who had lately been sent to the Congress of
Vienna, and was anxious at any risk to justify Henriette's appeal and
become a man myself, freed from all vassalage, nevertheless my
ambition, my desire for independence, the great interest I had in not
leaving the king, all were of no account before the vision of Madame
de Mortsauf's sad face. I resolved to leave the court at Ghent and
serve my true sovereign. God rewarded me. The emissary sent by the
The Lily of the Valley |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: inveighed against her; she was still beloved, and perhaps more deeply
than she had been.
All their misfortunes came, therefore, from the loss of the zaimph.
Salammbo had indirectly participated in it; she was included in the
same ill will; she must be punished. A vague idea of immolation spread
among the people. To appease the Baalim it was without doubt necessary
to offer them something of incalculable worth, a being handsome,
young, virgin, of old family, a descendant of the gods, a human star.
Every day the gardens of Megara were invaded by strange men; the
slaves, trembling on their own account, dared not resist them.
Nevertheless, they did not pass beyond the galley staircase. They
Salammbo |
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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: perception either of the process of achieving this object or of
the design itself.
"I have thrown it all aside now," he would say. "It was a dream
such as young men are always mystifying themselves with. Now that
I have acquired a little common sense, it makes me laugh to think
of it."
Poor, poor and fallen Owen Warland! These were the symptoms that
he had ceased to be an inhabitant of the better sphere that lies
unseen around us. He had lost his faith in the invisible, and now
prided himself, as such unfortunates invariably do, in the wisdom
which rejected much that even his eye could see, and trusted
Mosses From An Old Manse |
