| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was us'd in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet;
'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
That followed it as gentle day,
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
'I hate', from hate away she threw,
And sav'd my life, saying 'not you'.
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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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: A few days after the case was brought the baron was promoted to the
rank of captain. As a measure of ecclesiastical discipline, the curate
of Saint-Symphorien was suspended. His superiors judged him guilty.
The murderer of Sophie Gamard was also a swindler. If Monseigneur
Troubert had kept Mademoiselle Gamard's property he would have found
it difficult to make the ecclestiastical authorities censure
Birotteau.
At the moment when Monseigneur Hyacinthe, Bishop of Troyes, drove
along the quay Saint-Symphorien in a post-chaise on his way to Paris
poor Birotteau had been placed in an armchair in the sun on a terrace
above the road. The unhappy priest, smitten by the archbishop, was
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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 Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: And with mighty little money in the purse, as I have said,
But with all the care we brought them, and through all the days of stress,
I never heard my father or my mother wish for less.
The Job
The job will not make you, my boy;
The job will not bring you to fame
Or riches or honor or joy
Or add any weight to your name.
You may fail or succeed where you are,
May honestly serve or may rob;
From the start to the end
Just Folks |
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 Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: before eleven.
Every Monday morning, the dealer in second-hand goods, who lived under
the alley-way, spread out his wares on the sidewalk. Then the city
would be filled with a buzzing of voices in which the neighing of
horses, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs, could be
distinguished, mingled with the sharp sound of wheels on the cobble-
stones. About twelve o'clock, when the market was in full swing, there
appeared at the front door a tall, middle-aged peasant, with a hooked
nose and a cap on the back of his head; it was Robelin, the farmer of
Geffosses. Shortly afterwards came Liebard, the farmer of Toucques,
short, rotund and ruddy, wearing a grey jacket and spurred boots.
A Simple Soul |
