| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: fashion, was being preached, and assembled the "faithful" in her
own house. Though this teaching repudiated all ceremonies, icons,
and sacraments, Katerina Ivanovna had icons in every room, and
one on the wall above her bed, and she kept all that the Church
prescribed without noticing any contradiction in that.
"There now; if your Magdalene could hear him she would be
converted," said the Countess. "Do stay at home to-night; you
will hear him. He is a wonderful man."
"It does not interest me, ma tante."
"But I tell you that it is interesting, and you must come home.
Now you may go. What else do you want of me? Videz votre sac."
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: walking. The municipality really owed them asphalt footwalks.
"Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits with
proud humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to a
well-bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds her
shawl or cloak crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has a
little air of serene dignity, like Raphael's Madonnas in their frames.
Her aspect, at once quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent
dandy step aside for her.
"Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp
ribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women
wear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: offence. The North is every year less and less in need of his
services.
And he will not disappear. He will continue as a problem. His
friends will urge that he is as good as the white man. His
enemies--well, you can guess what his enemies will do from a
little incident that followed on a recent appointment by the
President. He made a negro an assistant in a post-office
where--think of it!--he had to work at the next desk to a white
girl, the daughter of a colonel, one of the first families of
Georgia's modern chivalry, and all the weary, weary rest of it.
The Southern chivalry howled, and hanged or burned some one in
|
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 Anthem by Ayn Rand: placed first within man's soul, else it
becomes a monster, the root of all the evils
on earth, the root of man's torture by men,
and of an unspeakable lie.
The word "We" is as lime poured over men,
which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes
all beneath it, and that which is white
and that which is black are lost equally
in the grey of it. It is the word by
which the depraved steal the virtue of
the good, by which the weak steal the
Anthem |
