| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: kindly let me have them rolled into our cellar; and oh, dear! now that
the good-man has seen them he insists on bottling them off himself!"
Madame Vernier had related the poor woman's trouble to her husband
just before the entrance of Gaudissart, and at the first words of the
famous traveller Vernier determined that he should be made to grapple
with Margaritis.
"Monsieur," said the ex-dyer, as soon as the illustrious Gaudissart
had fired his first broadside, "I will not hide from you the great
difficulties which my native place offers to your enterprise. This
part of the country goes along, as it were, in the rough,--"suo modo."
It is a country where new ideas don't take hold. We live as our
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: Athene will not lie. Were not these sandals to lead me in
the right road? Then the road in which I have tried to go
must be a wrong road.'
Then suddenly his ears were opened, and he heard the sound of
running water.
And at that his heart was lifted up, though he scarcely dare
believe his ears; and weary as he was, he hurried forward,
though he could scarcely stand upright; and within a bowshot
of him was a glen in the sand, and marble rocks, and date-
trees, and a lawn of gay green grass. And through the lawn a
streamlet sparkled and wandered out beyond the trees, and
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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 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: Ned, Conseil, and I went to the back of the boat.
"You are not coming, Captain?" I asked.
"No, sir; but I wish you good sport."
The boat put off, and, lifted by the six rowers, drew rapidly towards
the dugong, which floated about two miles from the Nautilus.
Arrived some cables-length from the cetacean, the speed slackened,
and the oars dipped noiselessly into the quiet waters.
Ned Land, harpoon in hand, stood in the fore part of the boat.
The harpoon used for striking the whale is generally attached to a
very long cord which runs out rapidly as the wounded creature draws
it after him. But here the cord was not more than ten fathoms long,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
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 and Man by Leo Tolstoy: were thickly covered with snow.
'If only that peasant doesn't freeze to death! His clothes are
so wretched. I may be held responsible for him. What
shiftless people they are--such a want of education,' thought
Vasili Andreevich, and he felt like taking the drugget off the
horse and putting it over Nikita, but it would be very cold to
get out and move about and, moreover, the horse might freeze to
death. 'Why did I bring him with me? It was all her
stupidity!' he thought, recalling his unloved wife, and he
rolled over into his old place at the front part of the sledge.
'My uncle once spent a whole night like this,' he reflected,
Master and Man |
