| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: could feel beneath his feet.
A woman's hand pushed him on to a divan, and untied the handkerchief
for him. Henri saw Paquita before him, but Paquita in all her womanly
and voluptuous glory. The section of the boudoir in which Henri found
himself described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced
opposite by the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a
chimney-piece shone of gold and white marble. He had entered by a door
on one side, hidden by a rich tapestried screen, opposite which was a
window. The semicircular portion was adorned with a real Turkish
divan, that is to say, a mattress thrown on the ground, but a mattress
as broad as a bed, a divan fifty feet in circumference, made of white
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: sometimes uncouth and frequently obscure. Ow-
ing to these, and other instances, idealism sug-
gests to the world at large a vague sentimentality
peculiar to the poets, a bloodless abstraction toyed
with by philosophers, which must remain a closed
book to struggling humanity.
Yet Tolstoy found true idealism in the toiling
peasant who believed in God, rather than in his
intellectual superior who believed in himself in the
first place, and gave a conventional assent to the
existence of a deity in the second. For the peas-
The Forged Coupon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: Necile to adopt. Then he found, sitting familiarly in the circle of
lovely immortals, a broad-shouldered, stalwart youth, who, when erect,
stood fully as high as the shoulder of the Master himself.
Ak paused, silent and frowning, to bend his piercing gaze upon Claus.
The clear eyes met his own steadfastly, and the Woodsman gave a sigh
of relief as he marked their placid depths and read the youth's brave
and innocent heart. Nevertheless, as Ak sat beside the fair Queen, and
the golden chalice, filled with rare nectar, passed from lip to lip,
the Master Woodsman was strangely silent and reserved, and stroked his
beard many times with a thoughtful motion.
With morning he called Claus aside, in kindly fashion, saying:
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: sprawling on one side, their hats tilted over their faces, while on the
other, Moira Morrison, in a bonnet like a huge strawberry, jumped up and
down.
"No ice! No ice! No ice!" she shouted gaily.
And Dennis chimed in from under his hat. "Only to be had from the
fishmonger's."
And Bill Hunt, emerging, added, "With whole fish in it."
"Oh, what a bore!" wailed Isabel. And she explained to William how they
had been chasing round the town for ice while she waited for him. "Simply
everything is running down the steep cliffs into the sea, beginning with
the butter."
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