| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: at the beautiful woman before him, and at the artless imprudence
of her cry of pain.
"You will not remember this against me?" she asked; "promise me
that you will not."
"Ah! madame, I am incapable of doing so," he said. She took his
hand and held it to her heart, a movement full of grace that
expressed her deep gratitude.
"I am free and happy once more, thanks to you," she said. "Oh! I
have felt lately as if I were in the grasp of an iron hand. But
after this I mean to live simply and to spend nothing. You will
think me just as pretty, will you not, my friend? Keep this," she
Father Goriot |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: the phrase is,--others prophetic. Some forms of disease, even,
may prophesy forms of health. The geologist has discovered that
the figures of serpents, griffins, flying dragons, and other
fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have their prototypes in the
forms of fossil species which were extinct before man was
created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy knowledge of a
previous state of organic existence." The Hindus dreamed that the
earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and
the tortoise on a serpent; and though it may be an unimportant
coincidence, it will not be out of place here to state, that a
fossil tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia large enough
Walking |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: Mr. Featherstone's room, and sat there alone through the small hours.
She often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure,
notwithstanding the old man's testiness whenever he demanded
her attentions. There were intervals in which she could sit
perfectly still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light.
The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn
existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires,
the straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving
her contempt. Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse
herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for,
having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely
Middlemarch |
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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: I opened the little wooden window and looked out. The entire river
bottom was flooded, and the knob of land on which the house stood was
an island in the middle of a rushing stream of yellow water a hundred
yards wide. And it was still raining hard. All we could do was to stay
there till the doves brought in the olive branch.
"I am bound to admit that conversations and amusements languished
during that day. I was aware that Mame was getting a too prolonged
one-sided view of things again, but I had no way to change it.
Personally, I was wrapped up in the desire to eat. I had
hallucinations of hash and visions of ham, and I kept saying to myself
all the time, 'What'll you have to eat, Jeff?--what'll you order now,
Heart of the West |
