| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: performed a great deed of mercy or had committed a revolting
outrage, he would have felt the same repulsion for both actions.
Of all the thoughts that strayed through his mind only two did
not irritate him: one was that at every moment he had the power
to kill himself, the other that this agony would not last more
than three days. This last he knew by experience.
After lying for a while he got up and, wringing his hands, walked
about the room, not as usual from corner to corner, but round the
room beside the walls. As he passed he glanced at himself in the
looking-glass. His face looked pale and sunken, his
temples looked hollow, his eyes were bigger, darker, more
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: hair to hang loose under a three-cornered hat, wore breeches with
straps that extended beyond the buckles, cotton stockings of mottled
thread knitted by his niece, whom he always called "the little
Saillard," stout shoes with silver buckles, and a surtout coat of
mixed colors. He looked very much like those verger-beadle-bell-
ringing-grave-digging-parish-clerks who are taken to be caricatures
until we see them performing their various functions. On the present
occasion he had come on foot to dine with the Saillards, intending to
return in the same way to the rue Greneta, where he lived on the third
floor of an old house. His business was that of discounting commercial
paper in the quartier Saint-Martin, where he was known by the nickname
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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 Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: There serpents hiss, there seven-mouthed Hydras yell,
Chimera there spues fire and brimstone out,
And Polyphemus blind supporteth hell,
Besides ten thousand monsters therein dwells
Misshaped, unlike themselves, and like naught else.
VI
About their princes each took his wonted seat
On thrones red-hot, ybuilt of burning brass,
Pluto in middest heaved his trident great,
Of rusty iron huge that forged was,
The rocks on which the salt sea billows beat,
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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 Lin McLean by Owen Wister: drink. The women followed, whispering a little; and behind them the slow
dray jolted, with its heaps of men waking from the depths of their
whiskey and asking what this was. So they went up the hill. When the
riders reached the tilted gate of the graveyard, they sprang off and
scattered among the hillocks, stumbling and eager. They nodded to Barker
and McLean, quietly waiting there, and began choosing among the open,
weather-drifted graves from which the soldiers had been taken. Their
figures went up and down the uneven ridges, calling and comparing.
"Here," said the Doughie, "here's a good hole."
"Here's a deep one," said another.
"We've struck a well here," said some more. "Put her in here."
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