| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: old pastor as he left the house. A few moments later he reached the
great courtyard of the Swedish villa. An old servant, over eighty
years of age, appeared in the portico bearing a lantern. Seraphitus
slipped off his snow-shoes with the graceful dexterity of a woman,
then darting into the salon he fell exhausted and motionless on a wide
divan covered with furs.
"What will you take?" asked the old man, lighting the immensely tall
wax-candles that are used in Norway.
"Nothing, David, I am too weary."
Seraphitus unfastened his pelisse lined with sable, threw it over him,
and fell asleep. The old servant stood for several minutes gazing with
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: merchant, being a church elder had to go to church, and had
also to entertain his relatives and friends at home.
But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare
to drive over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove
which he had been bargaining over for a long time. He was now
in a hurry to start, lest buyers from the town might forestall
him in making a profitable purchase.
The youthful landowner was asking ten thousand rubles for the
grove simply because Vasili Andreevich was offering seven
thousand. Seven thousand was, however, only a third of its
real value. Vasili Andreevich might perhaps have got it down
Master and Man |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: in her hand. Nobody could bargain with greater obstinacy, and as for
cleanliness, the lustre on her brass sauce-pans was the envy and
despair of other servants. She was most economical, and when she ate
she would gather up crumbs with the tip of her finger, so that nothing
should be wasted of the loaf of bread weighing twelve pounds which was
baked especially for her and lasted three weeks.
Summer and winter she wore a dimity kerchief fastened in the back with
a pin, a cap which concealed her hair, a red skirt, grey stockings,
and an apron with a bib like those worn by hospital nurses.
Her face was thin and her voice shrill. When she was twenty-five, she
looked forty. After she had passed fifty, nobody could tell her age;
A Simple Soul |
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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: plenty of eggs upon the rocks, and got a quantity of dry
sea-weed, and parched grass, which I designed to kindle the next
day, and roast my eggs as well as I could, for I had about me my
flint, steel, match, and burning-glass. I lay all night in the
cave where I had lodged my provisions. My bed was the same dry
grass and sea-weed which I intended for fuel. I slept very
little, for the disquiets of my mind prevailed over my weariness,
and kept me awake. I considered how impossible it was to
preserve my life in so desolate a place, and how miserable my end
must be: yet found myself so listless and desponding, that I had
not the heart to rise; and before I could get spirits enough to
Gulliver's Travels |
