| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: did I not tell you before what would be the result of this sad
affair? Who set the village on fire?"
"He, he, batiushka [little father]; he did it. I caught him. He
placed the bunch of burning straw to the barn in my presence.
Instead of running after him, I should have snatched the bunch of
burning straw and throwing it on the ground have stamped it out
with my feet; and then there would have been no fire."
"Ivan," said the old man, "death is fast approaching me, and
remember that you also will have to die. Who did this dreadful
thing? Whose is the sin?"
Ivan gazed at the noble face of his dying father and was silent.
The Kreutzer Sonata |
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 Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: clearer the blue firmament between the boughs.
Daniel watched the autumn trees with pure delight.
"He will go to-day," he said of a flaming maple
after a night of frost which had crisped the white
arches of the grass in his dooryard. All day he
sat and watched the maple cast its glory, and did
not bother much with his simple meals. The Wise
house was erected on three terraces. Always through
the dry summer the grass was burned to an ugly
negation of color. Later, when rain came, the grass
was a brilliant green, patched with rosy sorrel and
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