| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: and remains there, pen in hand, head tilted up, eyes closed,
listening painfully to the muffled roar of a distant train
in his ears; in his soundest sleep the strain continues,
he goes on listening, always listening intently, anxiously,
and wakes at last, harassed, irritable, unrefreshed.
He cannot manage to account for these things.
Day after day he feels as if he had spent his nights
in a sleeping-car. It actually takes him weeks to find
out that it is those persecuting torrents that have been
making all the mischief. It is time for him to get out
of Switzerland, then, for as soon as he has discovered
|
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 Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: that if they loved their husbands his visits must make mischief.
So he immolated himself. He made the sacrifice because he was a
father; he went into voluntary exile. His daughters were
satisfied, so he thought that he had done the best thing he
could; but it was a family crime, and father and daughters were
accomplices. You see this sort of thing everywhere. What could
this old Doriot have been but a splash of mud in his daughters'
drawing-rooms? He would only have been in the way, and bored
other people, besides being bored himself. And this that happened
between father and daughters may happen to the prettiest woman in
Paris and the man she loves the best; if her love grows tiresome,
Father Goriot |
