| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: distinctly hear his wife, Anna Filippovna, laying the table for
supper; in the yard close to the gate Yermolay, the porter, was
plaintively strumming on the balalaika. The baby had only to wake
up and begin to cry, and the secret would be discovered. Miguev
was conscious of an overwhelming desire to make haste.
"Haste, haste! . . ." he muttered, "this minute, before anyone
sees. I'll carry it away and lay it on somebody's doorstep. . .
."
Miguev took the bundle in one hand and quietly, with a deliberate
step to avoid awakening suspicion, went down the street. . . .
"A wonderfully nasty position!" he reflected, trying to assume an
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment
to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body
of his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed
with his efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link
that bound him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by
what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then
through a momentary gap he saw his drooping body collapse limply,
saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and found he was driving along
like a huge cloud in a strange place of shadowy clouds that had
the luminous intricacy of London spread like a model below.
But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was
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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 Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: DOCTOR KNOWALL
There was once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb, who drove with
two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a doctor for two
talers. When the money was being counted out to him, it so happened
that the doctor was sitting at table, and when the peasant saw how
well he ate and drank, his heart desired what he saw, and would
willingly have been a doctor too. So he remained standing a while, and
at length inquired if he too could not be a doctor. 'Oh, yes,' said
the doctor, 'that is soon managed.' 'What must I do?' asked the
peasant. 'In the first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind
which has a cock on the frontispiece; in the second, turn your cart
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: fighting, regarded as a free lance rather than as a great leader,
crushed by the necessity of earning his daily bread, which hindered
him from gaining ground, in despair at the influence exerted by money
over mind, and given over to dire poverty, buried himself in a garret,
to make thirty sous a day, the sum strictly answering to his needs.
Meditation had leveled a desert all round him. He read the papers to
be informed of what was going on. Pozzo di Borgo had once lived like
this for some time.
Marcas, no doubt, was planning a serious attack, accustoming himself
to dissimulation, and punishing himself for his blunders by
Pythagorean muteness. But he did not tell us the reasons for his
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