| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: part to take to prison. She could knit, and amuse herself; and she'd
be well fed and lodged, and have less trouble than she has at Conches.
Well, to-morrow, my girl, I'll see you about it; I haven't time to
stop now."
The next morning at daybreak Bonnebault and his old mother knocked at
the door of the Grand-I-Vert. Mother Tonsard was the only person up.
"Marie!" called Bonnebault, "that matter is settled."
"You mean about the trees?" said Mother Tonsard; "yes, it is all
settled; I've taken it."
"Nonsense!" cried Mother Bonnebault, "my son has got the promise of an
acre of land from Monsieur Rigou--"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: There was something rather magnificent in her whole appearance.
Her skirts of old, but rich, black fabric swept about her long,
advancing limbs; she held her black-bonneted head high, as if
crowned. She pushed the cumbersome baby-carriage with no
apparent effort. An ancient India shawl was draped about her
sloping shoulders.
Eudora, as she passed the Glynn house, turned her face slightly,
so that its pure oval was evident. She was now a beauty in late
middle life. Her hair, of an indeterminate shade, swept in soft
shadows over her ears; her features were regular; her expression
was at once regal and gentle. A charm which was neither of youth
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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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: image of your companion has left your thoughts."
"That time," said Nekayah, "will never come. The generous
frankness, the modest obsequiousness, and the faithful secrecy of
my dear Pekuah will always be more missed as I shall live longer to
see vice and folly."
"The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden calamity," said Imlac,
"is like that of the fabulous inhabitants of the new-created earth,
who, when the first night came upon them, supposed that day would
never return. When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see
nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they will be dispelled;
yet a new day succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long
|
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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: compact crowd; the elephants flung themselves impetuously upon the
centre of it. The spurs on their breasts, like ships' prows, clove
through the cohorts, which flowed surging back. They stifled the men
with their trunks, or else snatching them up from the ground delivered
them over their heads to the soldiers in the towers; with their tusks
they disembowelled them, and hurled them into the air, and long
entrails hung from their ivory fangs like bundles of rope from a mast.
The Barbarians strove to blind them, to hamstring them; others would
slip beneath their bodies, bury a sword in them up to the hilt, and
perish crushed to death; the most intrepid clung to their straps; they
would go on sawing the leather amid flames, bullets, and arrows, and
Salammbo |
