| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: occasion. Throwing back his jealous glance as he was ushering
her into his garden, he fancied he observed her spit, and
exclaimed, with great ferocity, 'Am I a toad, woman! that ye spit
at me--that ye spit at me?' and without listening to any answer
or excuse, drove her out of his garden with imprecations and
insult. When irritated by persons for whom he entertained little
respect, his misanthropy displayed itself in words, and sometimes
in actions, of still greater rudeness; and he used on such
occasions the most unusual and singularly savage imprecations and
threats." [SCOTS MAGAZINE, vol. lxxx. p.207.]
Nature maintains a certain balance of good and evil in all her
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: stole across his features.
When the cure of the parish came to administer the last sacraments,
the old man's eyes, sightless, apparently, for some hours, kindled at
the sight of the cross, the candlesticks, and the holy-water vessel of
silver; he gazed at them fixedly, and his wen moved for the last time.
When the priest put the crucifix of silver-gilt to his lips, that he
might kiss the Christ, he made a frightful gesture, as if to seize it;
and that last effort cost him his life. He called Eugenie, whom he did
not see, though she was kneeling beside him bathing with tears his
stiffening hand, which was already cold.
"My father, bless me!" she entreated.
Eugenie Grandet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: to riot in luxury instead of rotting in dungeons. I even drew the figures so
fine as to permit him not only to live in the best hotel but to smoke two
twenty-five-cent cigars and indulge in a ten-cent shine each day, and still
not cost the taxpayers so much as they were accustomed to pay for his
conviction and jail entertainment. And, as subsequent events proved, it made
the taxpayers wince.
"One of the constables I drew to the life; nor did I forget a certain Sol
Glenhart, as rotten a police judge as was to be found between the seas. And
this I say out of a vast experience. While he was notorious in local trampdom,
his civic sins were not only not unknown but a crying reproach to the
townspeople. Of course I refrained from mentioning name or habitat, drawing
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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 The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: life.
Bartolommeo Belvidero, at the age of sixty, had fallen in love
with an angel of peace and beauty. Don Juan had been the sole
fruit of this late and short-lived love. For fifteen years the
widower had mourned the loss of his beloved Juana; and to this
sorrow of age, his son and his numerous household had attributed
the strange habits that he had contracted. He had shut himself up
in the least comfortable wing of his palace, and very seldom left
his apartments; even Don Juan himself must first ask permission
before seeing his father. If this hermit, unbound by vows, came
or went in his palace or in the streets of Ferrara, he walked as
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