| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: shot by and by." And he did indeed come near us, careless of
danger, infatuated by his animal love, by his affection for his
mate, which I had just killed.
Karl fired, and it was as if somebody had cut the string which
held the bird suspended. I saw something black descend, and I
heard the noise of a fall among the rushes. And Pierrot brought
it to me.
I put them--they were already cold--into the same game-bag, and I
returned to Paris the same evening.
THE INN
Like all the little wooden inns in the higher Alps, tiny auberges
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: words the character of their own evil deeds. To any suffering which they
have deserved, they must persuade themselves to submit. Under the figure
there lurks a real thought, which, expressed in another form, admits of an
easy application to ourselves. For do not we too accuse as well as excuse
ourselves? And we call to our aid the rhetoric of prayer and preaching,
which the mind silently employs while the struggle between the better and
the worse is going on within us. And sometimes we are too hard upon
ourselves, because we want to restore the balance which self-love has
overthrown or disturbed; and then again we may hear a voice as of a parent
consoling us. In religious diaries a sort of drama is often enacted by the
consciences of men 'accusing or else excusing them.' For all our life long
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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 Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: penury, bored to death by an idle life, and without a hope of
establishing himself. That bitter thought and his own exhaustion, no
doubt, hastened the old man's end. One great comfort came to him as he
lay amid the wreck of so many hopes, sinking under the burden of so
many cares--the old Marquis, at his sister's entreaty, gave him back
all the old friendship. The great lord came to the little house in the
Rue du Bercail, and sat by his old servant's bedside, all unaware how
much that servant had done and sacrificed for him. Chesnel sat
upright, and repeated Simeon's cry.--The Marquis allowed them to bury
Chesnel in the castle chapel; they laid him crosswise at the foot of
the tomb which was waiting for the Marquis himself, the last, in a
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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 The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: from the inside by logs about six feet long laid horizontally,
one upon another, between the inside face of the palisade and
two other braced logs which paralleled the face of the wall
upon the inside.
As we entered the village, we were greeted by a not unfriendly
crowd of curious warriors and women, to whom Chal-az generously
explained the service we had rendered him, whereupon they
showered us with the most well-meant attentions, for Chal-az, it
seemed, was a most popular member of the tribe. Necklaces of
lion and tiger-teeth, bits of dried meat, finely tanned hides
and earthen pots, beautifully decorated, they thrust upon us
The People That Time Forgot |
