| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: living in the country, doing nothing, finding fault,
and feeling discontented with everything. Theo-
dorite was still in bed: so were the other members
of the household--Anna Mikhailovna, its mis-
tress; her sister, the widow of a general; and a
landscape painter who lived with the family.
Volgin took his panama hat from the hall table
(it had cost twenty roubles) and his cane with its
carved ivory handle, and went out. Crossing the
veranda, gay with flowers, he walked through the
flower garden, in the centre of which was a raised
The Forged Coupon |
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: wife,' said the man, 'why should we wish to be the king? I will not be
king.' 'Then I will,' said she. 'But, wife,' said the fisherman, 'how
can you be king--the fish cannot make you a king?' 'Husband,' said
she, 'say no more about it, but go and try! I will be king.' So the
man went away quite sorrowful to think that his wife should want to be
king. This time the sea looked a dark grey colour, and was overspread
with curling waves and the ridges of foam as he cried out:
'O man of the sea!
Hearken to me!
My wife Ilsabill
Will have her own will,
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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: maddened with an aching tooth. As no-body heard her ring, she
threw some gravel at my window, till at last I heard her and
slipped on my dressing-gown and went down. The poor thing begged
me with tears in her eyes to take out her tormentor, if I dragged
her head off. Down she sat and out it came--a lovely molar, not a
speck upon it; and off she went with it in her handkerchief, much
contented, though it would have done good work for her for fifty
years to come."
It was all so plausible--so completely explained. knowing nothing
of the incident in the wood on old Midsummer-eve, Grace felt that
her suspicions were unworthy and absurd, and with the readiness of
The Woodlanders |
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 Pupil by Henry James: was wrong, for she had fifty francs in her hand. She squeezed
forward in her dressing-gown, and he received her in his own,
between his bath-tub and his bed. He had been tolerably schooled
by this time to the "foreign ways" of his hosts. Mrs. Moreen was
ardent, and when she was ardent she didn't care what she did; so
she now sat down on his bed, his clothes being on the chairs, and,
in her preoccupation, forgot, as she glanced round, to be ashamed
of giving him such a horrid room. What Mrs. Moreen's ardour now
bore upon was the design of persuading him that in the first place
she was very good-natured to bring him fifty francs, and that in
the second, if he would only see it, he was really too absurd to
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