| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: was not stationary, it kept moving; and it was not a village
but some tall stalks of wormwood sticking up through the snow
on the boundary between two fields, and desperately tossing
about under the pressure of the wind which beat it all to one
side and whistled through it. The sight of that wormwood
tormented by the pitiless wind made Vasili Andreevich shudder,
he knew not why, and he hurriedly began urging the horse on,
not noticing that when riding up to the wormwood he had quite
changed his direction and was now heading the opposite way,
though still imagining that he was riding towards where the
hut should be. But the horse kept making towards the right,
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: mountain and desert, revived for him - and to the increase of his
keenness - by the tremendous force of analogy. He found himself at
moments - once he had placed his single light on some mantel-shelf
or in some recess - stepping back into shelter or shade, effacing
himself behind a door or in an embrasure, as he had sought of old
the vantage of rock and tree; he found himself holding his breath
and living in the joy of the instant, the supreme suspense created
by big game alone.
He wasn't afraid (though putting himself the question as he
believed gentlemen on Bengal tiger-shoots or in close quarters with
the great bear of the Rockies had been known to confess to having
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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 Paradise Lost by John Milton: For what God, after better, worse would build?
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou,
Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Paradise Lost |
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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: region at the very end of the world.
From that time on, Felicite thought solely of her nephew. On warm days
she feared he would suffer from thirst, and when it stormed, she was
afraid he would be struck by lightning. When she harkened to the wind
that rattled in the chimney and dislodged the tiles on the roof, she
imagined that he was being buffeted by the same storm, perched on top
of a shattered mast, with his whole body bend backward and covered
with sea-foam; or,--these were recollections of the engraved geography
--he was being devoured by savages, or captured in a forest by apes,
or dying on some lonely coast. She never mentioned her anxieties,
however.
A Simple Soul |
