| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: language was correctly spoken. The curate Poupard, in his History of
Sancerre, mentions the inhabitants of Issoudun as remarkable among the
other Berrichons for subtlety and natural wit. To-day, the wit and the
splendor have alike disappeared. Issoudun, whose great extent of
ground bears witness to its ancient importance, has now barely twelve
thousand inhabitants, including the vine-dressers of four enormous
suburbs,--those of Saint-Paterne, Vilatte, Rome, and Alouette, which
are really small towns. The bourgeoisie, like that of Versailles, are
spread over the length and breadth of the streets. Issoudun still
holds the market for the fleeces of Berry; a commerce now threatened
by improvements in the stock which are being introduced everywhere
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: their plots to draw him away from the work which was forbidden
him, and to get him outof-doors; the devotion of the youngest
boy, who used to call her "my Kitty," and would not go to bed
without her. How nice it all wasl Then she recalled the thin,
terribly thin figure of Petrov, with his long neck, in his brown
coat, his scant, curly hair, his questioning blue eyes that were
so terrible to Kitty at first, and his painful attempts to seem
hearty and lively in her presence. She recalled the efforts she
had made at first to overcome the repugnance she felt for him, as
for all consumptive people, and the pains it had cost her to
think of things to say to him. She recalled the timid, softened
Anna Karenina |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: this audacious scoffer kneeling humbly, and where? In the Lady
Chapel, where he remained through the mass, giving alms for the
expenses of the service, alms for the poor, and looking as
serious as though he were superintending an operation.
"He has certainly not come here to clear up the question of the
Virgin's delivery," said Bianchon to himself, astonished beyond
measure. "If I had caught him holding one of the ropes of the
canopy on Corpus Christi day, it would be a thing to laugh at;
but at this hour, alone, with no one to see--it is surely a thing
to marvel at!"
Bianchon did not wish to seem as though he were spying the head
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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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: Britain. If the inner set are narrowly educated, the outer set
if often crudely educated. If the inner set is so close knit as
to seem like a conspiracy, the outer set is so loosely knit as to
seem like a noisy confusion. Greater Britain is only beginning
to realise itself and find itself. For all its crudity there is
a giant spirit in it feeling its way towards the light. It has
quite other ambitions for the ending of the war than some haggled
treaty of alliance with France and Italy; some advantage that
will invalidate German competition; it begins to realise newer
and wider sympathies, possibilities of an amalgamation of
interests and community of aim that is utterly beyond the habits
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