| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: "Therein lies all literature, dear boy. Clarissa is a masterpiece,
there are fourteen volumes of her, and the most wooden-headed
playwright would give you the whole of Clarissa in a single act. So
long as I amuse you, what have you to complain of? That costume was
positively lovely. Don't you like camillias? Would you rather have
dahlias? No? Very good, chestnuts then, here's for you." (And probably
Bixiou flung a chestnut across the table, for we heard something drop
on a plate.)
"I was wrong, I acknowledge it. Go on," said Blondet.
"I resume. 'Pretty enough to marry, isn't she?' said Rastignac, coming
up to Godefroid de Beaudenord, and indicating the little one with the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: I will watch."
In a few moments, notwithstanding their wet clothes, the icy
blast that blew and the previous scene of terror, these
hardy adventurers, with their iron frames, inured to every
hardship, threw themselves down, intending to profit by the
advice of Athos, who sat at the helm, pensively wakeful,
guiding the little bark the way it was to go, his eyes fixed
on the heavens, as if he sought to verify not only the road
to France, but the benign aspect of protecting Providence.
After some hours of repose the sleepers were aroused by
Athos.
Twenty Years After |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: there were only five or six drops left in it, and he could not
venture to drink. And as he was hanging the flask to his belt
again, he saw a little dog lying on the rocks, gasping for breath--
just as Hans had seen it on the day of his ascent. And Gluck
stopped and looked at it, and then at the Golden River, not five
hundred yards above him; and he thought of the dwarf's words, that
no one could succeed except in his first attempt; and he tried to
pass the dog, but it whined piteously and Gluck stopped again.
"Poor beastie," said Gluck, "it'll be dead when I come down
again, if I don't help it." Then he looked closer and closer at
it, and its eye turned on him so mournfully that he could not stand
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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 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: "'They never loved who dreamed that they loved once,
And who saith, 'I loved once'?--
Not angels, whose deep eyes look down through realms of light!'
"Your disconsolate brother, on what is, in all probability, the last and
distracted night of his life.
"Gregory Nazianzen Rose.
"P.S.--Tell mother to take care of my pearl studs. I left them in the
wash-hand-stand drawer. Don't let the children get hold of them.
"P.P.S.--I shall take this letter with me to the farm. If I turn down one
corner you may know I have been accepted; if not, you may know it is all up
with your heartbroken brother,
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