| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: "Oh, how poor this country is!" she said, pointing to a field enclosed
by a dry stone wall, which was covered with droppings of cow's dung
applied symmetrically. "I asked a peasant-woman who was busy sticking
them on, why it was done; she answered that she was making fuel. Could
you have imagined that when those patches of dung have dried, human
beings would collect them, store them, and use them for fuel? During
the winter, they are even sold as peat is sold. And what do you
suppose the best dressmaker in the place can earn?--five sous a day!"
adding, after a pause, "and her food."
"But see," I said, "how the winds from the sea bend or destroy
everything. There are no trees. Fragments of wreckage or old vessels
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: of all the women that he could desire, knowing that his power was
irresistible, he did not care to exercise it; they were pliant to his
unexpressed wishes, to his most extravagant caprices, until he felt a
horrible thirst for love, and would have love beyond their power to
give.
The world refused him nothing save faith and prayer, the soothing and
consoling love that is not of this world. He was obeyed--it was a
horrible position.
The torrents of pain, and pleasure, and thought that shook his soul
and his bodily frame would have overwhelmed the strongest human being;
but in him there was a power of vitality proportioned to the power of
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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 Betty Zane by Zane Grey: intention to his step-father, who ill-concealed his satisfaction at the turn
affairs had taken. Then Alfred packed his belongings, secured his mother's
jewels, and with one sad, backward glance rode away from the stately old
mansion.
It was Sunday morning and Clarke had been two days in Fort Henry. From his
little room in the block-house he surveyed the well-remembered scene. The
rolling hills, the broad river, the green forests seemed like old friends.
"Here I am again," he mused. "What a fool a man can be. I have left a fine old
plantation, slaves, horses, a country noted for its pretty women--for what?
Here there can be nothing for me but Indians, hard work, privation, and
trouble. Yet I could not get here quickly enough. Pshaw! What use to speak of
Betty Zane |
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 Apology by Xenophon: said, "lend me your ears while I tell you something more, so that
those of you who choose may go to a still greater length in refusing
to believe that I am thus highly honoured by the divine powers.
Chaerephon[25] once, in the presence of many witnesses, put a question
at Delhi concerning me, and Apollo answered that there was no human
being more liberal, or more upright, or more temperate than myself."
And when once more on hearing these words the judges gave vent, as was
only natural, to a fiercer murmur of dissent, Socrates once again
spoke: "Yet, sirs, they were still greater words which the god spake
in oracle concerning Lycurgus,[26] the great lawgiver of Lacedaemon,
than those concerning me. It is said that as he entered the temple the
The Apology |
