| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: life, and his refusal to credit the slow and merciless approach
of death, without feeling that the question asked at Naishapur
many centuries ago is still waiting for the solution that is
always promised but never comes?
In the romances which followed, dating from 1888 to 1890, a sort
of calm despair seems to have settled down upon De Maupassant's
attitude toward life. Psychologically acute as ever, and as
perfect in style and sincerity as before, we miss the note of
anger. Fatality is the keynote, and yet, sounding low, we detect
a genuine subtone of sorrow. Was it a prescience of 1893? So much
work to be done, so much work demanded of him, the world of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Incipient motions are diffused. Again,
Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,
The bars are opened, how the eager strength
Of horses cannot forward break as soon
As pants their mind to do? For it behooves
That all the stock of matter, through the frame,
Be roused, in order that, through every joint,
Aroused, it press and follow mind's desire;
So thus thou seest initial motion's gendered
From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds
First from the spirit's will, whence at the last
Of The Nature of Things |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: Stop him, quick! he ‘s going down the rapid!"
Of course the man who is playing the salmon does not like this. If
he is quick-tempered, sooner or later he tells his counsellor to
shut up. But if he is a gentle, early-Christian kind of a man, wise
as a serpent and harmless as a dove, he follows the advice that is
given to him, promptly and exactly. Then, when it is all ended, and
he has seen the big fish, with the line over his shoulder, poised
for an instant on the crest of the first billow of the rapid, and
has felt the leader stretch and give and SNAP!--then he can have the
satisfaction, while he reels in his slack line, of saying to his
friend, "Well, old man, I did everything just as you told me. But I
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: He made an impatient movement. "This is mere hair-splitting.
What you mean is that, the doctrine having served your purpose
when you needed it, you now repudiate it."
"Well," she exclaimed, flushing again, "what if I do? What does
it matter to us?"
Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood
before his wife with something of the formality of a stranger.
"It matters to me," he said in a low voice, "because I do NOT
repudiate it."
"Well--?"
"And because I had intended to invoke it as"--
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