| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: ocean, the waves of which were breaking on the reef below, I surveyed
my future, filling it with books as an engineer or builder traces on
vacant ground a palace or a fort.
The sea was beautiful; I had just dressed after bathing; and I awaited
Pauline, who was also bathing, in a granite cove floored with fine
sand, the most coquettish bath-room that Nature ever devised for her
water-fairies. The spot was at the farther end of Croisic, a dainty
little peninsula in Brittany; it was far from the port, and so
inaccessible that the coast-guard seldom thought it necessary to pass
that way. To float in ether after floating on the wave!--ah! who would
not have floated on the future as I did! Why was I thinking? Whence
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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 Odyssey by Homer: putting the fleeces on to the seats, and she burst out crying as
she ran up to him; all the other maids came up too, and covered
his head and shoulders with their kisses. Penelope came out of
her room looking like Diana or Venus, and wept as she flung her
arms about her son. She kissed his forehead and both his
beautiful eyes, "Light of my eyes," she cried as she spoke
fondly to him, "so you are come home again; I made sure I was
never going to see you any more. To think of your having gone
off to Pylos without saying anything about it or obtaining my
consent. But come, tell me what you saw."
"Do not scold me, mother,' answered Telemachus, "nor vex me,
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: and knew not that this matter was a device of the devil; for
verily he is darkness, and feigneth to be light. So he began to
commune with the damsel, and talk with her over the oracles of
the knowledge of God, and said, "Lady, be thou acquainted with
the ever-living God, and perish not in the error of these idols;
but know thy Lord, and the Maker of all this world, and thou
shalt be happy, the bride of the immortal bridegroom." While he
exhorted her with many such-like words, immediately the evil
spirit whispered to the girl that she should spread under his
feet the nets of deceit to drag his blessed soul into the pit of
lust, as he once did to our first parent by means of Eve, thus
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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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: and soft as the atmosphere of the Bay of Naples, for which reason the
faculty recommend the place of abode. At mid-day she came out to sit
under the shade of green leaves with the two boys, who never wandered
from her now. Lessons had come to an end. Mother and children wished
to live the life of heart and heart together, with no disturbing
element, no outside cares. No tears now, no joyous outcries. The elder
boy, lying in the grass at his mother's side, basked in her eyes like
a lover and kissed her feet. Marie, the restless one, gathered flowers
for her, and brought them with a subdued look, standing on tiptoe to
put a girlish kiss on her lips. And the pale woman, with the great
tired eyes and languid movements, never uttered a word of complaint,
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