| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: niche for sleeping, with a straw mattress, a small table, and a
shelf with icons and books. Outside the outer door, which
fastened with a hook, was another shelf on which, once a day, a
monk placed food from the monastery.
And so Sergius became a hermit.
III
At Carnival time, in the sixth year of Sergius's life at the
hermitage, a merry company of rich people, men and women from a
neighbouring town, made up a troyka-party, after a meal of
carnival-pancakes and wine. The company consisted of two
lawyers, a wealthy landowner, an officer, and four ladies. One
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: virtues and the most passionate impulses; she had needed the modesty
and sanctity of this monotonous life to calm and cool the tumultuous
blood of the Maranas which bounded in her heart, the desires of which
her adopted mother told her were an instigation of the devil.
A faint ray of light traced along the sill of the secret door guided
Montefiore to the place; he scratched the panel softly and Juana
opened to him. Montefiore entered, palpitating, but he recognized in
the expression of the girl's face complete ignorance of her peril, a
sort of naive curiosity, and an innocent admiration. He stopped short,
arrested for a moment by the sacredness of the picture which met his
eyes.
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