| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: Red lights came into sight in the distance. A train was moving
towards me. The slumbering steppe listened to the sound of it. My
thoughts were so bitter that it seemed to me that I was thinking
aloud and that the moan of the telegraph wire and the rumble of
the train were expressing my thoughts.
"What can happen worse? The loss of my wife?" I wondered. "Even
that is not terrible. It's no good hiding it from my conscience:
I don't love my wife. I married her when I was only a wretched
boy; now I am young and vigorous, and she has gone off and grown
older and sillier, stuffed from her head to her heels with
conventional ideas. What charm is there in her maudlin love, in
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: "Observe sign-posts and milestones;
do not gobble herring bones--"
"And remember," said I impressively,
"if you once cross the county
boundary you cannot come back.
Alexander, you are not attending.
Here are two licences permitting
two pigs to go to market in
Lancashire. Attend, Alexander. I have
had no end of trouble in getting
these papers from the policeman."
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: the quarest start that ever I knowed!"
"Mine?" asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his
target eyes. "I--I haven't got neither maid, wife,
nor widder belonging to me at all, and I'm afeard it
will make me laughed at to ha'e it, Master Traveller.
What with being curious to join in I never thought of that!
What shall I do wi' a woman's clothes in MY bedroom,
and not lose my decency!"
"Keep 'em, to be sure," said Fairway, "if it is only
for luck. Perhaps 'twill tempt some woman that thy poor
carcase had no power over when standing empty-handed."
Return of the Native |
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 An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: push the man to extremes, Malin kept him on as bailiff, under the iron
rule of Grevin the notary of Arcis.
From that moment Michu became more absorbed and taciturn than ever,
and obtained the reputation of a man who was capable of committing a
crime. Malin, the Councillor of State (a function which the First
Consul raised to the level of a ministry), and a maker of the Code,
played a great part in Paris, where he bought one of the finest
mansions in the Faubuorg Saint-Germain after marrying the only
daughter of a rich contractor named Sibuelle. He never came to
Gondreville; leaving all matters concerning the property to the
management of Grevin, the Arcis notary. After all, what had he to
|
