| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: he had been on bad terms, and who had settled
apart with his new family. Mitia Smokovnikov
wanted to make it up. The old man wondered at
first, and laughed at the change he noticed in his
son; but after a while he ceased to find fault with
him, and thought of the many times when it was
he who was the guilty one.
AFTER THE DANCE
AFTER THE DANCE
"--AND you say that a man cannot, of himself,
understand what is good and evil; that it is all
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: at your age. These two existences must, however, be made to
harmonize in the ideal which you cherish; and this, I may remark
in passing, is very rare.
The pure, spontaneous, disinterested homage of a solitary soul
which is both educated and chaste, is one of those celestial
flowers whose color and fragrance console for every grief, for
every wound, for every betrayal which makes up the life of a
literary man; and I thank you with an impulse equal to your own.
But after this poetical exchange of my griefs for the pearls of
your charity, what next? what do you expect? I have neither the
genius nor the splendid position of Lord Byron; above all, I have
Modeste Mignon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: Athens, as he said, at the great Panathenaea; the former was, at the time
of his visit, about 65 years old, very white with age, but well favoured.
Zeno was nearly 40 years of age, tall and fair to look upon; in the days of
his youth he was reported to have been beloved by Parmenides. He said that
they lodged with Pythodorus in the Ceramicus, outside the wall, whither
Socrates, then a very young man, came to see them, and many others with
him; they wanted to hear the writings of Zeno, which had been brought to
Athens for the first time on the occasion of their visit. These Zeno
himself read to them in the absence of Parmenides, and had very nearly
finished when Pythodorus entered, and with him Parmenides and Aristoteles
who was afterwards one of the Thirty, and heard the little that remained of
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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 The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: XXVII. THE BABY
XXVIII. WHAT IS LOVE?
XXIX. THE NEW MAN
LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
MARY ADAMS, An Old-Fashioned Girl.
JIM ANTHONY, A Modern Youth.
JANE ANDERSON, An Artist.
ELLA, A Scrubwoman.
NANCE OWENS, Jim Anthony's Mother.
A DOCTOR, Whose Call was Divine.
THE BABY, A Mascot.
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