| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: week! Will you promise me? Will you?"
"Are you going to tell Father?"
"Not for a week, if you'll promise not to see each other in that
week. No, I don't want to send you away, Julia, I don't want to.
. . . You're not a bad girl. It's just--he's never had--at home
they never gave him a chance. Just a week, Julia. Just a week,
Eugene. We can talk things over then."
Adele's footsteps coming from the kitchen.
"Quick!"
"I promise," said Eugene. Julia said nothing.
"Well, really," said Adele, from the doorway, "you're a nervy
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: in the regiment he had been not merely an irreproachable officer
but had even exceeded his duties and widened the borders of
perfection, so also as a monk he tried to be perfect, and was
always industrious, abstemious, submissive, and meek, as well as
pure both in deed and in thought, and obedient. This last
quality in particular made life far easier for him. If many of
the demands of life in the monastery, which was near the capital
and much frequented, did not please him and were temptations to
him, they were all nullified by obedience: 'It is not for me to
reason; my business is to do the task set me, whether it be
standing beside the relics, singing in the choir, or making up
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: greater part of mankind are corrupt in every condition,
and differ in high and in low stations, only
as they have more or fewer opportunities of gratifying
their desires, or as they are more or less
restrained by human censures. Many vitiate their
principles in the acquisition of riches; and who can
wonder that what is gained by fraud and extortion
is enjoyed with tyranny and excess?
Yet I am willing to believe that the depravation
of the mind by external advantages, though certainly
not uncommon, yet approaches not so nearly
|
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 The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: child. My whole nature was so wrung that at Blois I went upon the
bridge to drown myself in the Loire. The height of the parapet
prevented my suicide.
When I reached home, my two sisters, who did not know me, showed more
surprise than tenderness. Afterwards, however, they seemed, by
comparison, to be full of kindness towards me. I was given a room on
the third story. You will understand the extent of my hardships when I
tell you that my mother left me, a young man of twenty, without other
linen than my miserable school outfit, or any other outside clothes
than those I had long worn in Paris. If I ran from one end of the room
to the other to pick up her handkerchief, she took it with the cold
The Lily of the Valley |
