| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: had you given us the chance.
"Would you consider the offer of the assistant editorship of our
QUARTERLY, a literary and critical pamphlet, that we publish in
New York, and with which we presume you are familiar? We do not
believe there would be any difficulty in the matter of financial
arrangements. In case you should decide to come on, we inclose R.
R. passes via the A. T. & S. F., C. & A., and New York Central.
"Very truly,
"THE CENTENNIAL PUBLISHING COMPANY,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: And then Paris; and the university, with its wild
under-life,--some debts, some follies; and the frequent fond
letters from home to which he might have replied so much
oftener;--Paris, where talent is mediocrity; Paris, with its
thunders and its splendors and its seething of passion;--Paris,
supreme focus of human endeavor, with its madnesses of art, its
frenzied striving to express the Inexpressible, its spasmodic
strainings to clutch the Unattainable, its soarings of soul-fire
to the heaven of the Impossible ...
What a rejoicing there was at his return!--how radiant and level
the long Road of the Future seemed to open before him!
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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 Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: his pride. 'There now, am I not a splendid man not to want
anything?' That was why he could not tolerate the Abbot's
action. 'I have renounced everything for the glory of God, and
here I am exhibited like a wild beast!' 'Had you renounced
vanity for God's sake you would have borne it. Worldly pride is
not yet dead in you. I have thought about you, Sergius my son,
and prayed also, and this is what God has suggested to me. At
the Tambov hermitage the anchorite Hilary, a man of saintly life,
has died. He had lived there eighteen years. The Tambov Abbot
is asking whether there is not a brother who would take his
place. And here comes your letter. Go to Father Paissy of the
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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 Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: flame, and the Cossack state was instituted--a free, wild outbreak of
Russian nature--and when all the river-banks, fords, and like suitable
places were peopled by Cossacks, whose number no man knew. Their bold
comrades had a right to reply to the Sultan when he asked how many
they were, "Who knows? We are scattered all over the steppes; wherever
there is a hillock, there is a Cossack."
It was, in fact, a most remarkable exhibition of Russian strength,
forced by dire necessity from the bosom of the people. In place of the
original provinces with their petty towns, in place of the warring and
bartering petty princes ruling in their cities, there arose great
colonies, kurens[3], and districts, bound together by one common
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
