| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: manufacture many thousand pictures, bright and fleeting, like
the shapes in a kaleidoscope; and now he saw himself, ruddy
and comfortered, sliding in the gutter; and, again, a little
woe-begone, bored urchin tricked forth in crape and weepers,
descending this same hill at the foot's pace of mourning
coaches, his mother's body just preceding him; and yet again,
his fancy, running far in front, showed him his destination -
now standing solitary in the low sunshine, with the sparrows
hopping on the threshold and the dead man within staring at
the roof - and now, with a sudden change, thronged about with
white-faced, hand-uplifting neighbours, and doctor bursting
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: as we see that of horses on a frosty day. I do not know where a
man finds the fulcrum that enables him to hold out against such a
life.
"I was alone, with no one to help me, no money to buy books or to
pay the expenses of my medical training; I had not a friend; my
irascible, touchy, restless temper was against me. No one
understood that this irritability was the distress and toil of a
man who, at the bottom of the social scale, is struggling to
reach the surface. Still, I had, as I may say to you, before whom
I need wear no draperies, I had that ground-bed of good feeling
and keen sensitiveness which must always be the birthright of any
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: but go to the hotel and wait."
So him and the new dummy started off; and the king
he laughs, and blethers out:
"Broke his arm -- VERY likely, AIN'T it? -- and very
convenient, too, for a fraud that's got to make signs,
and ain't learnt how. Lost their baggage! That's
MIGHTY good! -- and mighty ingenious -- under the
CIRCUMSTANCES!
So he laughed again; and so did everybody else,
except three or four, or maybe half a dozen. One of
these was that doctor; another one was a sharp-
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
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 Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: set a kiss on the plaits of hair. "If you only knew, little one,
how happy you can make me--how little it takes to make me happy!
Will you come and see me sometimes? I shall be just above, so it
is only a step. Promise me, say that you will!"
"Yes, dear father."
"Say it again."
"Yes, I will, my kind father."
"Hush! hush! I should make you say it a hundred times over if I
followed my own wishes. Let us have dinner."
The three behaved like children that evening, and Father Goriot's
spirits were certainly not the least wild. He lay at his
Father Goriot |
