| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: had paid the money and kept the box. I walked up and down the Rue
des Fosses-Saint-Germain-des-Pres and the Rue de l'Ecole de
Medecine without hitting on any scheme which would release my
trunk without the payment of the forty francs, which of course I
could pay as soon as I should have sold the linen. My stupidity
proved to me that surgery was my only vocation. My good fellow,
refined souls, whose powers move in a lofty atmosphere, have none
of that spirit of intrigue that is fertile in resource and
device; their good genius is chance; they do not invent, things
come to them.
"At night I went home, at the very moment when my fellow lodger
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: which our marriage has brought on me"--these words were
stinging his imagination as a pain makes an exaggerated dream.
If he were not only to sink from his highest resolve,
but to sink into the hideous fettering of domestic hate?
"Rosamond," he said, turning his eyes on her with a melancholy look,
"you should allow for a man's words when he is disappointed
and provoked. You and I cannot have opposite interests.
I cannot part my happiness from yours. If I am angry with you,
it is that you seem not to see how any concealment divides us.
How could I wish to make anything hard to you either by my words
or conduct? When I hurt you, I hurt part of my own life. I should
Middlemarch |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: while.
"Remove that," said Matho to him. "I know that you are a brave
fellow!" For he was so crushed by the injustice of the gods that he
had not strength enough to be indignant with men.
Spendius beckoned to him and led him to a hollow of the mountain,
where Zarxas and Autaritus were lying concealed.
They had fled like the slave, the one although he was cruel, and the
other in spite of his bravery. But who, said they, could have expected
the treachery of Narr' Havas, the burning of the camp of the Libyans,
the loss of the zaimph, the sudden attack by Hamilcar, and, above all,
his manoeuvres which forced them to return to the bottom of the
Salammbo |
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 Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: street-fight. An' it was told of him that he shot twice after a
bullet had passed through his heart. Think of the terrible
nature of a man to be able to do that. If you have any such
blood in you, never give it a chance."
"What you say is all very well, uncle," returned Duane, "but
the only way out for me is to run, and I won't do it. Cal Bain
and his outfit have already made me look like a coward. He says
I'm afraid to come out and face him. A man simply can't stand
that in this country. Besides, Cal would shoot me in the back
some day if I didn't face him."
"Well, then, what're you goin' to do?" inquired the elder man.
The Lone Star Ranger |
