| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: doubtful of M. d'Espard's solvency in consequence of the enormous sums
which Baron Jeanrenaud and his mother were said to be receiving from
him. And, indeed, these suspicions on the part of the tenants, the
creditors, and the landlord had some excuse in the Marquis' extreme
economy in housekeeping. He conducted it as a ruined man might. His
servants always paid in ready money for the most trifling necessaries
of life, and acted as not choosing to take credit; if now they had
asked for anything on credit, it would probably have been refused,
calumnious gossip had been so widely believed in the neighborhood.
There are tradesmen who like those of their customers who pay badly
when they see them often, while they hate others, and very good ones,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: ugly stones. But Mowgli did not trouble his head about the
water; little water in the world could have given him a moment's
fear. He was looking at the gorge on either side and sniffing
uneasily, for there was a sweetish-sourish smell in the air,
very like the smell of a big ant-hill on a hot day.
Instinctively he lowered himself in the water, only raising his
head to breathe from time to time, and Kaa came to anchor with a
double twist of his tail round a sunken rock, holding Mowgli in
the hollow of a coil, while the water raced on.
"This is the Place of Death," said the boy. "Why do we
come here?"
The Second Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: the colors; he made the corrections suggested by Schinner, he touched
up his figures. Then, disgusted with such patching, he carried the
picture to Elie Magus. Elie Magus, a sort of Dutch-Flemish-Belgian,
had three reasons for being what he became,--rich and avaricious.
Coming last from Bordeaux, he was just starting in Paris, selling old
pictures and living on the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. Fougeres, who
relied on his palette to go to the baker's, bravely ate bread and
nuts, or bread and milk, or bread and cherries, or bread and cheese,
according to the seasons. Elie Magus, to whom Pierre offered his first
picture, eyed it for some time and then gave him fifteen francs.
"With fifteen francs a year coming in, and a thousand francs for
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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 God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: metaphor, not a mere spiritual state, not a dream, not an uncertain
project; it is the thing before us, it is the close and inevitable
destiny of mankind.
In a few score years the faith of the true God will be spreading
about the world. The few halting confessions of God that one hears
here and there to-day, like that little twittering of birds which
comes before the dawn, will have swollen to a choral unanimity. In
but a few centuries the whole world will be openly, confessedly,
preparing for the kingdom. In but a few centuries God will have led
us out of the dark forest of these present wars and confusions into
the open brotherhood of his rule.
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