| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: sent his club whirling out of his grasp, and the next moment
he was a dead man.
About the same time, two 'highly connected' young Virginians,
clerks in a hardware store at Charlottesville, while 'skylarking,'
came to blows. Peter Dick threw pepper in Charles Roads's eyes;
Roads demanded an apology; Dick refused to give it, and it
was agreed that a duel was inevitable, but a difficulty arose;
the parties had no pistols, and it was too late at night
to procure them. One of them suggested that butcher-knives
would answer the purpose, and the other accepted the suggestion;
the result was that Roads fell to the floor with a gash
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: spies to discover who was the enemy's commander-in-chief. The gnat,
who was the most crafty, flew into the forest where the enemy was
assembled, and hid herself beneath a leaf of the tree where the
password was to be announced. There stood the bear, and he called the
fox before him and said: 'Fox, you are the most cunning of all
animals, you shall be general and lead us.' 'Good,' said the fox, 'but
what signal shall we agree upon?' No one knew that, so the fox said:
'I have a fine long bushy tail, which almost looks like a plume of red
feathers. When I lift my tail up quite high, all is going well, and
you must charge; but if I let it hang down, run away as fast as you
can.' When the gnat had heard that, she flew away again, and revealed
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: paths of commerce had enabled him to observe the windings of the heart
of man. He had learned the secret of persuasive eloquence, the knack
of loosening the tightest purse-strings, the art of rousing desire in
the souls of husbands, wives, children, and servants; and what is
more, he knew how to satisfy it. No one had greater faculty than he
for inveigling a merchant by the charms of a bargain, and disappearing
at the instant when desire had reached its crisis. Full of gratitude
to the hat-making trade, he always declared that it was his efforts in
behalf of the exterior of the human head which had enabled him to
understand its interior: he had capped and crowned so many people, he
was always flinging himself at their heads, etc. His jokes about hats
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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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: past or future, nor of certain social considerations. I have only one
thing to say to you. M. de Restaud has a mother, a mother who would
waste millions of francs; a woman of no birth, a Mlle. Goriot; people
talked a good deal about her at one time. She behaved so badly to her
own father, that she certainly does not deserve to have so good a son.
The young Count adores her, and maintains her in her position with
dutifulness worthy of all praise, and he is extremely good to his
brother and sister.--But however admirable HIS behavior may be," the
Vicomtesse added with a shrewd expression, "so long as his mother
lives, any family would take alarm at the idea of intrusting a
daughter's fortune and future to young Restaud."
Gobseck |
