| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: women. And then, in the doubtful light that the tapers shed down the
nave, with that of a central lamp and of some lights round the
pillars, the young man beheld a face which shook his determination. A
white watered-silk bonnet closely framed features of perfect
regularity, the oval being completed by the satin ribbon tie that
fastened it under her dimpled chin. Over her forehead, very sweet
though low, hair of a pale gold color parted in two bands and fell
over her cheeks, like the shadow of leaves on a flower. The arches of
her eyebrows were drawn with the accuracy we admire in the best
Chinese paintings. Her nose, almost aquiline in profile, was
exceptionally firmly cut, and her lips were like two rose lines
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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 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: published in the English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and
Danish languages.
I. BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS
The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history
of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed,
stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time
ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at
large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
The Communist Manifesto |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: his pole-climbing days.
"It's just something that only luck or an accident can mend,"
said the nerve specialist. "Time may do it--but I doubt it.
Sometimes just a word-- the right word--will set the thing in
motion again. Does he get any letters?"
"His girl writes to him. Fine letters. But she doesn't know
yet about-- about this. I've written his letters for him. She
knows now that his leg is healed and she wonders----"
That had been a month ago. Today Miss Kate slit the envelope
post- marked Chicago. Chet was fingering the yellow wooden
chicken, pride in his eyes. In Miss Kate's eyes there was a
One Basket |
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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: Letters of Two Brides
Another Study of Woman
The Gondreville Mystery
The Member for Arcis
Maufrigneuse, Georges de
The Gondreville Mystery
Beatrix
The Member for Arcis
Mirbel, Madame de
Letters of Two Brides
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
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