| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: would have been better off if your father----"
"My father," cried the boy, "where is he?"
"He is dead," she said, laying her finger on her lips; "he died to
save my honor and my life."
She looked upwards. If any tears had been left to her, she would have
wept for pain.
"Louis," she continued, "swear to me, as I lie here, that you will
forget all that you have written, all that I have told you."
"Yes, mother."
"Kiss me, dear angel."
She was silent for a long while, she seemed to be drawing strength
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis: stamped itself into the texture of his spirit. "You shouldn't
ask it, Loge," he said. The crisis of the conflict which he was
living over passed presently, and he murmured, with contracted
brows, and as if talking to himself: "Is Loge a crook? A crook?"
But after a moment of this he returned again to a rapid
repetition of the phrase: "I'm a revolutionist, not a crook-not
a crook--not a crook--a revolutionist, not a crook, Loge, not a
crook----" Once he varied it, crying with a quick, hot scorn:
"I'll cut their throats and be damned to them, but don't ask me
to steal." And then he was off again to declaiming his poetry:
"I spit, but, as I spit, I weep!"
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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 The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: He had seven coats on when he came,
With three pairs of boots--but the worst of it was,
He had wholly forgotten his name.
He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,
Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"
While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"
And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."
The Hunting of the Snark |
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 Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: pleasure. You have chosen badly in love, and you are arranging your
life ill. The woman whom you delight to wound was at the Opera the
other night, and this was how she spoke of you. She deplored the way
in which you were throwing away your talent and the prime of youth;
she was thinking of you, and not of herself, all the while."
"Ah! if you were only telling me the truth, madame!" cried Lucien.
"What object should I have in telling lies?" returned the Marquise,
with a glance of cold disdain which annihilated him. He was so dashed
by it, that the conversation dropped, for the Marquise was offended,
and said no more.
Lucien was nettled by her silence, but he felt that it was due to his
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