| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: completely absorbed him that he felt no pain when he found that the
office of canon, in which the late Chapeloud had hoped his friend
Birotteau might succeed him, was given to another. Mademoiselle Gamard
having cheerfully agreed to take the vicar to board, the latter was
thenceforth a participator in all those felicities of material comfort
of which the deceased canon had been wont to boast.
Incalculable they were! According to the Abbe Chapeloud none of the
priests who inhabited the city of Tours, not even the archbishop, had
ever been the object of such minute and delicate attentions as those
bestowed by Mademoiselle Gamard on her two lodgers. The first words
the canon said to his friend when they met for their walk on the Mail
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: Enter.
Lod. Is this the Noble Moore, whom our full Senate
Call all in all sufficient? Is this the Nature
Whom Passion could not shake? Whose solid vertue
The shot of Accident, nor dart of Chance
Could neither graze, nor pierce?
Iago. He is much chang'd
Lod. Are his wits safe? Is he not light of Braine?
Iago. He's that he is: I may not breath my censure.
What he might be: if what he might, he is not,
I would to heauen he were
Othello |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: forgotten him. He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned
to the house, caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline,
but held very little communion with either; in fact, there was no
time for him to commune with anybody.
One evening, he was sitting, in utter dejection and prostration,
by a few decaying brands, where his coarse supper was baking.
He put a few bits of brushwood on the fire, and strove to
raise the light, and then drew his worn Bible from his pocket.
There were all the marked passages, which had thrilled his soul so
often,--words of patriarchs and seers, poets and sages, who from
early time had spoken courage to man,--voices from the great cloud
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
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 A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: "Listen.--All I can earn by my work I mean to give to the poor. You
have made me rich. How I love that pretty home at Bellefeuille, less
because of what it is than because you gave it me! But tell me, Roger,
I should like to call myself Caroline de Bellefeuille--can I? You must
know: is it legal or permissible?"
As she saw a little affirmative grimace--for Roger hated the name of
Crochard--Caroline jumped for glee, and clapped her hands.
"I feel," said she, "as if I should more especially belong to you.
Usually a woman gives up her own name and takes her husband's--" An
idea forced itself upon her and made her blush. She took Roger's hand
and led him to the open piano.--"Listen," said she, "I can play my
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