| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: very different sensations by the two enemies, to whom Barbette was
really speaking instead of to her son.
"Don't you see the Blues?" she cried sharply. "Come here, you little
scamp, or I shall be after you. Do you want to be shot? Come, hide,
quick!"
While these things took place rapidly a Blue jumped into the marshy
courtyard.
"Beau-Pied!" exclaimed Mademoiselle de Verneuil.
Beau-Pied, hearing her voice, rushed into the cottage, and aimed at
the count.
"Aristocrat!" he cried, "don't stir, or I'll demolish you in a wink,
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: over himself, felt a shudder pass through his frame. "My
dear boy," said Baisemeaux, endeavoring to smile, "I have
brought you a diversion and an extra, -- the one for the
mind, the other for the body; this gentleman has come to
take your measure, and here are some preserves for your
dessert."
"Oh, monsieur," exclaimed the young man, "keep me in
solitude for a year, let me have nothing but bread and water
for a year, but tell me that at the end of a year I shall
leave this place, tell me that at the end of a year I shall
see my mother again."
Ten Years Later |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: wings, made their hidden nests of sand,--and where the cranes
waded for their prey,--and where the beautiful wild-ducks,
plumaged in satiny lilac and silken green, found their food,--and
where the best reeds grew to furnish stems for Feliu's red-clay
pipe,--and where the ruddy sea-beans were most often tossed upon
the shore,--and how the gray pelicans fished all together, like
men--moving in far-extending semicircles, beating the flood with
their wings to drive the fish before them.
And from Carmen she learned the fables and the sayings of the
sea,--the proverbs about its deafness, its avarice, its
treachery, its terrific power,--especially one that haunted her
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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 Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: My parents, though otherwise not great philosophers,
knew the force of early education, and took
care that the blank of my understanding should be
filled with impressions of the value of money. My
mother used, upon all occasions, to inculcate some
salutary axioms, such as might incite me to KEEP
WHAT I HAD, AND GET WHAT I COULD; she informed me
that we were in a world, where ALL MUST CATCH THAT
CATCH CAN; and as I grew up, stored my memory
with deeper observations; restrained me from the
usual puerile expenses, by remarking that MANY A
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