| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: hair and flaming eyes.
"Before her husband turned round again the poor woman had nodded to
the stranger, to whom the signal was meant to convey, 'Hope.'
"At four o'clock, as the day was dawning, for it was the month of
September, the work was done. The mason was placed in charge of Jean,
and Monsieur de Merret slept in his wife's room.
"Next morning when he got up he said with apparent carelessness, 'Oh,
by the way, I must go to the Maire for the passport.' He put on his
hat, took two or three steps towards the door, paused, and took the
crucifix. His wife was trembling with joy.
" 'He will go to Duvivier's,' thought she.
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: turned towards him, as if attracted by some exclamation which had
accompanied his advance. Suddenly the intruder drew his sword;
the bridegroom unsheathed his own, and made towards him; swords
were also drawn by other individuals, both of the marriage party
and of those who had last entered. They fell into a sort of
confusion, the clergyman, and some elder and graver persons,
labouring apparently to keep the peace, while the hotter spirits
on both sides brandished their weapons. But now, the period of
the brief space during which the soothsayer, as he pretended, was
permitted to exhibit his art, was arrived. The fumes again mixed
together, and dissolved gradually from observation; the vaults
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: as much. We imagined, like inexperienced children, that such a
sum could never be exhausted, and we counted, with equal
confidence, upon the success of our other schemes.
"After having supped, with certainly more satisfaction than I
had ever before experienced, I retired to prepare for our
project. All my arrangements were the more easy, because, for
the purpose of returning on the morrow to my father's, my luggage
had been already packed. I had, therefore, no difficulty in
removing my trunk, and having a chaise prepared for five o'clock
in the morning, at which hour the gates of the town would be
opened; but I encountered an obstacle which I was little prepared
|
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 Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: From what my father has told me, I know that the house in
which he was born and spent his youth was a three-storied
building with thirty-six rooms. On the spot where it stood,
between the two wings, the remains of the old stone foundation
are still visible in the form of trenches filled with rubble, and
the site is covered with big sixty-year-old trees that my father
himself planted.
When any one asked my father where he was born, he used to
point to a tall larch which grew on the site of the old
foundations.
"Up there where the top of that larch waves," he used to
|
