| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: officer has stolen..."
"I'm not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of
other officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but
I am not a diplomatist. That's why I joined the hussars, thinking that
here one would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying- so
let him give me satisfaction..."
"That's all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that's not the
point. Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet
to demand satisfaction of his regimental commander?"
Denisov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the
conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: moment the vividest point in his thoughts. He wondered anew,
as he had wondered before, at the way in which the harsh
discipline of life had stripped her of false sentiment
without laying the least touch on her pride. When they had
parted, five months before, she had quietly but decidedly
rejected all his offers of help, even to the suggestion of
his trying to further her theatrical aims: she had made it
clear that she wished their brief alliance to leave no trace
on their lives save that of its own smiling memory. But now
that they were unexpectedly confronted in a situation which
seemed, to her terrified fancy, to put her at his mercy, her
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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 Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: The tiny little girl was so sick that she only just could breathe
quickly, just so--and just so--.
If Bessie Bell could remember that, it was only that she remembered
the big white cat like a big soft dream. And she might have
remembered how, now and then, the big cat put out a paw and touched
the little girl's cheek, like a soft white dream-touch.
And that little girl had on a night-gown that was long, and soft,
and white, and on that little white night-gown was worked, oh so
carefully, in linen thread: ``Bessie Bell.''
Then the few people who walked about the world in Fever-time came in
to that big house, and they took up that little tiny girl that
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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 Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: Easy live and quiet die."
The sounds ceased, and the Keeper entered his daughter's
apartment.
The words she had chosen seemed particularly adapted to her
character; for Lucy Ashton's exquisitely beautiful, yet somewhat
girlish features were formed to express peace of mind, serenity,
and indifference to the tinsel of wordly pleasure. Her locks,
which were of shadowy gold, divided on a brow of exquisite
whiteness, like a gleam of broken and pallid sunshine upon a hill
of snow. The expression of the countenance was in the last
degree gentle, soft, timid, and feminine, and seemed rather to
The Bride of Lammermoor |
