| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: stretched on the slope below him, sometimes at the darkening sky,
covered with white streaks of cloud.
A hawk flew high over a forest far away wit slow sweep of its
wings; another flew with exactly the same motioin in the same
direction and vanished. The birds twittered more and more loudly
and busily in the thicket. An owl hooted not far off, and Laska,
starting, stepped cautiously a few steps forward, and putting her
head on the side, began to listen intently. Beyond the stream
was heard the cuckoo. Twice she uttered her usual cuckoo call,
and then gave a hoarse, hurried call and broke down.
"Imagine! the cockoo already!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, coming
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: indifferent to man.
But there were men in these mountains, like lice on
mammoths' hides, fighting them stubbornly, now with
hydraulic "monitors," now with drill and dynamite, boring
into the vitals of them, or tearing away great yellow
gravelly scars in the flanks of them, sucking their blood,
extracting gold.
Here and there at long distances upon the canyon sides rose
the headgear of a mine, surrounded with its few unpainted
houses, and topped by its never-failing feather of black
smoke. On near approach one heard the prolonged thunder of
McTeague |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: the title of a book, and appending a "puff" of two or three
lines.[22] In twenty years' time the same fate will probably
have overtaken theatrical criticism.
[22] These remarks refer to the French newspaper press.--Note of
the Translator.
The close watching of the course of opinion has become to-day the
principal preoccupation of the press and of governments. The
effect produced by an event, a legislative proposal, a speech, is
without intermission what they require to know, and the task is
not easy, for nothing is more mobile and changeable than the
thought of crowds, and nothing more frequent than to see them
|
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 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: drawing the basket up, "I'll begin: When, in the course of human
events, it becomes necessary for a fellow to hold two or three
dozen of his fellow-worms in captivity, a decent regard to the
opinions of society requires--"
"I don't see that you are growing more serious," said Miss Ophelia.
"Wait,--I'm coming on,--you'll hear. The short of the matter
is, cousin," said he, his handsome face suddenly settling into
an earnest and serious expression, "on this abstract question
of slavery there can, as I think, be but one opinion. Planters,
who have money to make by it,--clergymen, who have planters to
please,--politicians, who want to rule by it,--may warp and bend
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
