| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: held its breath while he slit the envelope open and took from it a
slip of paper. He read its contents--slowly and impressively--the
audience listening with tranced attention to this magic document,
each of whose words stood for an ingot of gold:
"'The remark which I made to the distressed stranger was this: "You
are very far from being a bad man; go, and reform."'" Then he
continued:- "We shall know in a moment now whether the remark here
quoted corresponds with the one concealed in the sack; and if that
shall prove to be so--and it undoubtedly will--this sack of gold
belongs to a fellow-citizen who will henceforth stand before the
nation as the symbol of the special virtue which has made our town
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: imprudently placed in the front rank, this really artistic work he was
never weary of calling the finest book of the period, the novel of the
century.
Raoul complained bitterly of the exigencies of art. He was one of
those who contributed most to bring all created work, pictures,
statues, books, building under the single standard of Art. He had
begun his career by committing a volume of verse, which won him a
place in the pleiades of living poets; among these verses was a
nebulous poem that was greatly admired. Forced by want of means to
keep on producing, he went from the theatre to the press, and from the
press to the theatre, dissipating and scattering his talent, but
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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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: feeling it, everything that we meet without clearly
distinguishing it, has a rapid, surprising, and inexplicable
effect upon us and upon our organs, and through them on our ideas
and on our being itself.
How profound that mystery of the Invisible is! We cannot fathom
it with our miserable senses: our eyes are unable to perceive
what is either too small or too great, too near to or too far
from us; we can see neither the inhabitants of a star nor of a
drop of water; our ears deceive us, for they transmit to us the
vibrations of the air in sonorous notes. Our senses are fairies
who work the miracle of changing that movement into noise, and by
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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 Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: other. You are surprised at what you see here?"
"Extremely."
"But above all things, I am a marvel to you?"
"I confess it."
"I am still young, am I not? Should you not have known me
again, in spite of my eight-and-forty years of age?"
"On the contrary, I do not find you the same person at all."
"I understand," cried Athos, with a gentle blush.
"Everything, D'Artagnan, even folly, has its limit."
"Then your means, it appears, are improved; you have a
capital house -- your own, I presume? You have a park, and
Twenty Years After |
