| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Louis. Good Monsieur Lefebvre would not hear of my lodging anywhere
but at his house, where he showed me his nephew's room with the books
and all else that had belonged to him. At every turn the old man could
not suppress some mournful exclamation, showing what hopes Louis'
precocious genius had raised, and the terrible grief into which this
irreparable ruin had plunged him.
"That young fellow knew everything, my dear sir!" said he, laying on
the table a volume containing Spinoza's works. "How could so well
organized a brain go astray?"
"Indeed, monsieur," said I, "was it not perhaps the result of its
being so highly organized? If he really is a victim to the malady as
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: the poison out? When my head throbs, who will lay his tiny hands upon it
and still the beating? In the cold and the dark, who will warm my freezing
heart?"
And Love cried out, "Better let me die! Without Joy I can live; without
this I cannot. Let me rather die, not lose it!"
And the wise old woman answered, "O fools and blind! What you once had is
that which you have now! When Love and Life first meet, a radiant thing is
born, without a shade. When the roads begin to roughen, when the shades
begin to darken, when the days are hard, and the nights cold and long--then
it begins to change. Love and Life WILL not see it, WILL not know it--till
one day they start up suddenly, crying, 'O God! O God! we have lost it!
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: the abbe learned to play in a very short time.
This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Mironet's
salon. The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and
knowledge of the world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor
to the profession, came there sometimes; but his duties and also his
fatigue (which obliged him to go to bed early and to be up early)
prevented his being as assiduously present as the three other friends.
This intercourse of five superior men, the only ones in Nemours who
had sufficiently wide knowledge to understand each other, explains old
Minoret's aversion to his relatives; if he were compelled to leave
them his money, at least he need not admit them to his society.
|
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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: "About a week after Collier pulled his freight there came a kind of
side-show to town, and hoisted a tent near the railroad. I judged it
was a sort of fake museum and curiosity business. I called to see Mame
one night, and Ma Dugan said that she and Thomas, her younger brother,
had gone to the show. That same thing happened for three nights that
week. Saturday night I caught her on the way coming back, and got to
sit on the steps a while and talk to her. I noticed she looked
different. Her eyes were softer, and shiny like. Instead of a Mame
Dugan to fly from the voracity of man and raise violets, she seemed to
be a Mame more in line as God intended her, approachable, and suited
to bask in the light of the Brazilians and the Kindler.
Heart of the West |
