| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: Yet sometime tis not so, but alters to
The quallity of his thoughts; long time his eye
Will dwell upon his object. Mellencholly
Becomes him nobly; So do's Arcites mirth,
But Palamons sadnes is a kinde of mirth,
So mingled, as if mirth did make him sad,
And sadnes, merry; those darker humours that
Sticke misbecomingly on others, on them
Live in faire dwelling. [Cornets. Trompets sound as to a
charge.]
Harke, how yon spurs to spirit doe incite
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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 Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: that I was still alive. If you had come several days later I should
have been a rich man within a year."
His clenched fist resting on his knee, the rascal stared out ahead
of him when he ended his shameless confession. In his rage and
disappointment he had not noticed that Muller's hand dropped gently
to the desk and softly took a little bottle from under the
handkerchief. Langen came out of his dark thoughts only when
Muller's voice broke the silence. "But you miscalculated, if you
expected to inherit from your sister. She is still a minor and
your father's will would have given you only ten thousand guldens.
"But you forget that Asta will be twenty-four on the third of
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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 Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: last one out every night.
Outside the air was murky, foggy. Gas and electricity were but
faint splotches of light on the thick curtain of fog and mist.
Around the opera was a mighty bustle of carriages and drivers and
footmen, with a car gaining headway in the street now and then, a
howling of names and numbers, the laughter and small talk of
cloaked society stepping slowly to its carriages, and the more
bourgeoisie vocalisation of the foot passengers who streamed
along and hummed little bits of music. The fog's denseness was
confusing, too, and at one moment it seemed that the little
narrow street would become inextricably choked and remain so
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
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 Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: had played to Madame Graslin unrolled itself before him; he divined it
to its fullest extent. Less influenced, as a son of the nineteenth
century, by the religious aspect of the matter, Monsieur de
Grandville's heart was filled with an awful dread; for he saw before
him, he contemplated the drama of that woman's hidden self at the
hotel Graslin during the trial of Jean-Francois Tascheron. That tragic
period came back distinctly to his memory,--lighted even now by the
mother's eyes, shining with hatred, which fell upon him where he
stood, like drops of molten lead. That old woman, standing ten feet
from him, forgave nothing. That man, representing human justice,
trembled. Pale, struck to the heart, he dared not cast his eyes upon
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