| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: a trap by Jean Valjean, and the bearer of an enormous sum of money."
"The young man was myself, and here is the coat!" cried Marius,
and he flung upon the floor an old black coat all covered with blood.
Then, snatching the fragment from the hands of Thenardier, he crouched
down over the coat, and laid the torn morsel against the tattered skirt.
The rent fitted exactly, and the strip completed the coat.
Thenardier was petrified.
This is what he thought: "I'm struck all of a heap."
Marius rose to his feet trembling, despairing, radiant.
He fumbled in his pocket and stalked furiously to Thenardier,
presenting to him and almost thrusting in his face his fist filled
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy
with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.
Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they
very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of
remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure
the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are
part of the disease.
They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping
the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by
amusing the poor.
But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: past Goodwood station and Lavant, and approached Chichester
towards four o'clock. And then came a terrible thing. In places
the road became hard, in places were the crowded indentations of
a recent flock of sheep, and at last in the throat of the town
cobbles and the stony streets branching east, west, north, and
south, at a stone cross under the shadow of the cathedral the
tracks vanished. "O Cricky!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, dismounting in
dismay and standing agape. "Dropped anything?" said an inhabitant
at the kerb. "Yes," said Mr. Hoopdriver, "I've lost the spoor,"
and walked upon his way, leaving the inhabitant marvelling what
part of a bicycle a spoor might be. Mr. Hoopdriver, abandoning
|
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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: Breteche, having dismantled it. Some people even say that she had
burnt all the furniture, the hangings--in short, all the chattels and
furniture whatever used in furnishing the premises now let by the said
M.--(Dear, what am I saying? I beg your pardon, I thought I was
dictating a lease.)--In short, that she burnt everything in the meadow
at Merret. Have you been to Merret, monsieur?--No,' said he, answering
himself, 'Ah, it is a very fine place.'
" 'For about three months previously,' he went on, with a jerk of his
head, 'the Count and Countess had lived in a very eccentric way; they
admitted no visitors; Madame lived on the ground-floor, and Monsieur
on the first floor. When the Countess was left alone, she was never
La Grande Breteche |
