| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: went to Ivan to question him in regard to the matter.
On arriving at his house they said: "A General came to us with an
order from you that we were all to become soldiers, and if we
refused you were to punish us with death. Is it true?"
Ivan began to laugh heartily on hearing this, and said: "Well,
how I alone can punish you with death is something I cannot
understand. If I was not a fool myself I would be able to explain
it to you, but as it is I cannot."
"Well, then, we will not go," they said.
"Very well," replied Ivan, "you need not become soldiers unless
you wish to."
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:
They change their skies above them,
But not their hearts that roam!
We learned from our wistful mothers
To call old England "home";
We read of the English skylark,
Of the spring in the English lanes,
But we screamed with the painted lories
As we rode on the dusty plains!
They passed with their old-world legends --
Verses 1889-1896 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: himself has come in search of me. But is he alive?"
She placed her hand on the phenomenon, with the boldness which women
derive from the violence of their wishes, but a cold sweat burst from
her pores, for, the instant she touched the old man, she heard a cry
like the noise made by a rattle. That shrill voice, if indeed it were
a voice, escaped from a throat almost entirely dry. It was at once
succeeded by a convulsive little cough like a child's, of a peculiar
resonance. At that sound, Marianina, Filippo, and Madame de Lanty
looked toward us, and their glances were like lightning flashes. The
young woman wished that she were at the bottom of the Seine. She took
my arm and pulled me away toward a boudoir. Everybody, men and women,
|
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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: SOLOMON - AND I THINK SHE SAID IT WI' A SIGH, - 'THE HALF OF IT
HATH NOT BEEN TOLD UNTO ME.'"
As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the old
Covenanters, of whom he was the worthy representative, his mouth
was full of sacred quotations; it was the book that he had studied
most and thought upon most deeply. To many people in his station
the Bible, and perhaps Burns, are the only books of any vital
literary merit that they read, feeding themselves, for the rest, on
the draff of country newspapers, and the very instructive but not
very palatable pabulum of some cheap educational series. This was
Robert's position. All day long he had dreamed of the Hebrew
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