| 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: smile, as if she had communicated some very good news to him.
"I am coming," he answered, as he rose, taking his comb to
arrange his hair.
She stood still for a minute, and he, noticing it, threw down his
comb and made a step towards her, but at that very moment she
turned suddenly and went with quick light steps along the strip
of carpet in the middle of the passage.
"Dear me, what a fool I am," thought Nekhludoff. "Why did I not
stop her?" What he wanted her for he did not know himself, but he
felt that when she came into his room something should have been
done, something that is generally done on such occasions, and
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: and potentates, but has always, except in Ptolemy's case, proved
somewhat of a failure, namely, the making a new deity. Mythology in
general was in a rusty state. The old Egyptian gods had grown in his
dominions very unfashionable, under the summary iconoclasm to which they
had been subjected by the Monotheist Persians--the Puritans of the old
world, as they have been well called. Indeed, all the dolls, and the
treasure of the dolls' temples too, had been carried off by Cambyses to
Babylon. And as for the Greek gods, philosophers had sublimed them away
sadly during the last century: not to mention that Alexander's
Macedonians, during their wanderings over the world, had probably become
rather remiss in their religious exercises, and had possibly given up
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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 Aeneid by Virgil: His pow'r in peace, or his command in war.
For me, my friends another town shall frame,
And bless the rising tow'rs with fair Lavinia's name."
Thus he. Then, with erected eyes and hands,
The Latian king before his altar stands.
"By the same heav'n," said he, "and earth, and main,
And all the pow'rs that all the three contain;
By hell below, and by that upper god
Whose thunder signs the peace, who seals it with his nod;
So let Latona's double offspring hear,
And double-fronted Janus, what I swear:
Aeneid |
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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: an enterprise before. Moreover, he was beset with thoughts of
Salammbo, and he raved in the delight of her beauty as in the
sweetness of a vengeance that transported him with pride. He felt an
acrid, frenzied, permanent want to see her again. He even thought of
presenting himself as the bearer of a flag of truce, in the hope that
once within Carthage he might make his way to her. Often he would
cause the assault to be sounded and waiting for nothing rush upon the
mole which it was sought to construct in the sea. He would snatch up
the stones with his hands, overturn, strike, and deal sword-thrusts
everywhere. The Barbarians would dash on pell-mell; the ladders would
break with a loud crash, and masses of men would tumble into the
Salammbo |
