| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: Sviazhsky's he should meet the landowners of the neighborhood,
and it was particularly interesting for him just now to hear and
take part in those rural conversations concerning crops,
laborers' wages, and so on, which, he was aware, are
conventionally regarded as something very low, but which seemed
to him just now to constitute the one subject of importance. "It
was not, perhaps, of importance in the days of serfdom, and it
may not be of importance in England. In both cases the conditions
of agriculture are firmly established; but among us now, when
everything has been turned upside down and is only just taking
shape, the question what form these conditions will take is the
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: Huysum, grown rich himself, had secretly carved for his friend a wall-
decoration in ebony, representing the chief scenes in the life of Van
Artevelde,--that brewer of Ghent who, for a brief hour, was King of
Flanders. This wall-covering, of which there were no less than sixty
panels, contained about fourteen hundred principal figures, and was
held to be Van Huysum's masterpiece. The officer appointed to guard
the burghers whom Charles V. determined to hang when he re-entered his
native town, proposed, it is said, to Van Claes to let him escape if
he would give him Van Huysum's great work; but the weaver had already
despatched it to Douai.
The parlor, whose walls were entirely panelled with this carving,
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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 $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: Well, she had a golden arm--all solid gold, fum de shoulder down.
He wuz pow'ful mean--pow'ful; en dat night he couldn't sleep,
caze he want dat golden arm so bad.
When it come midnight he couldn't stan' it no mo'; so he git up,
he did, en tuck his lantern en shoved out thoo de storm en dug her
up en got de golden arm; en he bent his head down 'gin de 'win, en
plowed en plowed en plowed thoo de snow. Den all on a sudden he
stop (make a considerable pause here, and look startled, and take
a listening attitude) en say: "My LAN', what's dat?"
En he listen--en listen--en de win' say (set your teeth together
and imitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the wind),
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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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of a new day, he entered the low foothills that guard
the approach to the fastness of the mountains of Torquas.
Rugged, granitic walls towered before him. Nowhere
could he discern an opening through the formidable
barrier; yet somewhere into this inhospitable world
of stone the green warrior had borne the woman of
the red man's heart's desire.
Across the yielding moss of the sea-bottom there had
been no spoor to follow, for the soft pads of the thoat
but pressed down in his swift passage the resilient
vegetation which sprang up again behind his fleeting
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
