| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: wants of the travellers, she returned to the kitchen.
The four men, for the landlord was invited to drink, did not hear her
go to bed, but later, during the intervals of silence which came into
their talk, certain strongly accentuated snores, made the more
sonorous by the thin planks of the loft in which she had ensconced
herself, made the guests laugh and also the husband. Towards midnight,
when nothing remained on the table but biscuits, cheese, dried fruit,
and good wine, the guests, chiefly the young Frenchmen, became
communicative. The latter talked of their homes, their studies, and of
the war. The conversation grew lively. Prosper Magnan brought a few
tears to the merchant's eyes, when with the frankness and naivete of a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: France needs may not come at once. We were fourteen years in
changing our confederation into a union, perhaps France cannot be
expected to jump at once into perfect legislation or perfect forms.
Crude ideas are afloat, but as to Communism, it is already exploded,
or will be brushed away from legislative power as soon as the
National Assembly meets, though the question of ameliorating the
condition of the laboring class is more and more engaging the public
mind." . . . "I spent an hour with Cousin, the Minister of a
morning. He gave me sketches of many of the leading men of these
times, and I made him detail to me he scene of Louis Philippe's
abdication, which took place in a manner quite different from what I
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: "Mind you don't disgrace the name, Charles."
"And the skipper chimes in very kindly:
"He'll do well enough I dare say. I'll look after him a bit."
"Upon this he grabs the Articles, says something about trying to run
in for a minute to see that poor devil in the hospital, and off he
goes with his heavy swinging step after telling me sternly: "Don't
you go like that poor fellow and get yourself run over by a cart as
if you hadn't either eyes or ears."
"Mr. Powell," says I timidly (there was by then only the thin-necked
man left in the office with us and he was already by the door,
standing on one leg to turn the bottom of his trousers up before
Chance |
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 Iliad by Homer: of great stature, who was brought up in fertile Thrace, the
mother of sheep. Cisses, his mother's father, brought him up in
his own house when he was a child--Cisses, father to fair Theano.
When he reached manhood, Cisses would have kept him there, and
was for giving him his daughter in marriage, but as soon as he
had married he set out to fight the Achaeans with twelve ships
that followed him: these he had left at Percote and had come on
by land to Ilius. He it was that now met Agamemnon son of Atreus.
When they were close up with one another, the son of Atreus
missed his aim, and Iphidamas hit him on the girdle below the
cuirass and then flung himself upon him, trusting to his strength
The Iliad |
