| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Those shepherd-singers at whose rival strains
The heifer wondering forgot to graze,
The lynx stood awe-struck, and the flowing streams,
Unwonted loiterers, stayed their course to hear-
How Damon and Alphesiboeus sang
Their pastoral ditties, will I tell the tale.
Thou, whether broad Timavus' rocky banks
Thou now art passing, or dost skirt the shore
Of the Illyrian main,- will ever dawn
That day when I thy deeds may celebrate,
Ever that day when through the whole wide world
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: excite the imaginations of the whole community without his name or his
business being known.
Now, Arcis being still in a state of tranquillity three days before
the morning when, by the will of the creator of so many histories, the
present tale begins, there was seen to arrive by the county road a
stranger, driving a handsome tilbury drawn by a valuable horse, and
accompanied by a tiny groom, no bigger than my fist, mounted on a
saddle-horse. The coach, connecting with the diligences to Troyes, had
brought from La Belle Etoile three trunks coming from Paris, marked
with no name, but belonging to this stranger, who took up his quarters
at the Mulet inn. Every one in Arcis supposed, on the first evening,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: were laid down, upon which the property was to be distributed, but
the details were left to my discretion, and to the guidance of
circumstances as they should happen to emerge from the various
inquiries which it would become necessary to set on foot. This
first document I soon laid aside, both because I found that its
provisions were dependent for their meaning upon the second, and
because to this second document I looked with confidence for a
solution of many mysteries;--of the profound sadness which had,
from the first of my acquaintance with him, possessed a man so
gorgeously endowed as the favorite of nature and fortune; of his
motives for huddling up, in a clandestine manner, that connection
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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 Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: wrapt, joyous expression of her face, by which he knew that just
exactly the same that was singing in his own soul was also
singing in hers.
In the interval between the early and the late mass Nekhludoff
left the church. The people stood aside to let him pass, and
bowed. Some knew him; others asked who he was.
He stopped on the steps. The beggars standing there came
clamouring round him, and he gave them all the change he had in
his purse and went down. It was dawning, but the sun had not yet
risen. The people grouped round the graves in the churchyard.
Katusha had remained inside. Nekhludoff stood waiting for her.
Resurrection |
