| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: sufficiently just to give me time to pack my books and remove my
furniture."
"Monsieur," said the Abbe Troubert, coldly, not permitting any sign of
emotion to appear on his face, "Mademoiselle Gamard told me yesterday
of your departure, the cause of which is still unknown to me. If she
installed me here at once, it was from necessity. The Abbe Poirel has
taken my apartment. I do not know if the furniture and things that are
in these rooms belong to you or to Mademoiselle; but if they are
yours, you know her scrupulous honesty; the sanctity of her life is
the guarantee of her rectitude. As for me, you are well aware of my
simple modes of living. I have slept for fifteen years in a bare room
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: remind old mother Earth of what was expected from
her! Moreover, no doubt it had been observed that
the scattering of dead flesh over the ground or mixed
with the seed, did bless the ground to a greater fertility;
and so by a strange mixture of primitive observation with
a certain child-like belief that by means of symbols and
suggestions Nature could be appealed to and induced to
answer to the desires and needs for her children this sort
of ceremonial Magic arose. It was not exactly Science, and
it was not exactly Religion; but it was a naive, and perhaps
not altogether mistaken, sense of the bond between Nature
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: wouldn't be best to remove the limb below the knee and make it a
job. You can see for yourself that it is septic and the
inflammation is spreading up rapidly."
"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "do you fear mortification?"
He nodded. "Can't say what was on that slug or bit of old iron
and he hasn't had the best chance since. Mortification, or
tetanus, or both, are more than possible. Is he a temperate
man?"
"So far as I know," I answered, and stared at him while he
thought. Then he said with decision,
"That makes a difference. To lose a foot is a serious thing;
|
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 The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: My uncle talked a great deal, so much that he bored us; I sat on
a box listening to him and dropping to sleep. It distressed me
that he did not once all the evening pay attention to me. He left
the lodge at two o'clock, when, overcome with drowsiness, I was
sound asleep.
From that time forth my uncle took to coming to the lodge every
evening. He sang with us, had supper with us, and always stayed
on till two o'clock in the morning, chatting incessantly, always
about the same subject. His evening and night work was given up,
and by the end of June, when the privy councillor had learned to
eat mother's turkey and _compote_, his work by day was abandoned
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