| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: --you must let me--pay--your--yes, your passage to the Indies. Yes, I
wish to pay your passage because--d'ye see, my boy?--in valuing your
jewels I estimated only the weight of the gold; very likely the
workmanship is worth something. So let us settle it that I am to give
you fifteen hundred francs--in /livres/; Cruchot will lend them to me.
I haven't got a copper farthing here,--unless Perrotet, who is
behindhand with his rent, should pay up. By the bye, I'll go and see
him."
He took his hat, put on his gloves, and went out.
"Then you are really going?" said Eugenie to her cousin, with a sad
look, mingled with admiration.
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: "Reeves!" mocked Mary Louise. "Cecil Reeves, of The Earth?
He wouldn't dream of looking at my stuff. And anyway, it really
isn't your affair." And began to descend the stairs.
"Well, you know you brought me up here, kicking with your
heels, and singing at the top of your voice. I couldn't work. So
it's really your fault." Then, just as Mary Louise had almost
disappeared down the stairway he put his last astonishing question.
"How often do you wash your hair?" he demanded.
"Well, back home," confessed Mary Louise, "every six weeks or
so was enough, but----"
"Not here," put in the rude young man, briskly. "Never.
Buttered Side Down |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: By his side he saw two long poles of basswood, with some strips of green bark
and pieces of grapevine laced across and tied fast to the poles. Evidently
this had served as a litter on which he had been carried. From his wet clothes
and the position of the sun, now low in the west, he concluded he had been
brought across the river and was now miles from the fort. In front of him he
saw three Indians sitting before a fire. One of them was cutting thin slices
from a haunch of deer meat, another was drinking from a gourd, and the third
was roasting a piece of venison which he held on a sharpened stick. Isaac knew
at once the Indians were Wyandots, and he saw they were in full war paint.
They were not young braves, but middle aged warriors. One of them Isaac
recognized as Crow, a chief of one of the Wyandot tribes, and a warrior
Betty Zane |
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 Phaedo by Plato: brings the opposite will admit the opposite of that which it brings, in
that to which it is brought. And here let me recapitulate--for there is no
harm in repetition. The number five will not admit the nature of the even,
any more than ten, which is the double of five, will admit the nature of
the odd. The double has another opposite, and is not strictly opposed to
the odd, but nevertheless rejects the odd altogether. Nor again will parts
in the ratio 3:2, nor any fraction in which there is a half, nor again in
which there is a third, admit the notion of the whole, although they are
not opposed to the whole: You will agree?
Yes, he said, I entirely agree and go along with you in that.
And now, he said, let us begin again; and do not you answer my question in
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