| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: rows. Others in the distance were still mowing, or turning the long
lines of fallen grass to dry it, or hastening to pile it into cocks.
The joyous laugh of the merry workers mingling with the shouts of the
children tumbling each other in the hay, rose on the air. The eye
could distinguish the pink, red, or blue petticoats, the kerchiefs,
and the bare legs and arms of the women, all wearing broad-brimmed
hats of a coarse straw, and the shirts and trousers of the men, the
latter almost invariably white. The last rays of the sun were
filtering through the long lines of poplars planted beside the
trenches which divided the plain into meadows of unequal size, and
caressing the groups of horses and carts, men, women, children, and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: in-law, the old shareholders of the Company, and
the many new ones that had subscribed to Rezanov's
ambitious project, gave themselves up to despair.
For a time the outlook was dark. The personal
enemies of Rezanov and the bitter and persistent
opponents of the companies threw themselves eager-
ly into the scale with tales of brutality of the mer-
chants and the threatened extirpation of the fur-
bearing animals. Paul announced his attention to
abolish all the companies and close the colonies to
traders big and little.
Rezanov |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: green; and at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the
round horizon into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the
clear air of day, suspended against a blue-veined neck, the
pure-watered diamond drop will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning
jeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he
lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the
sun, but by some unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery
effulgences, infernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once
the divinest symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel
stolen from the King of Hell. But let us to the story.
It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman
Moby Dick |
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 House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: of a skilful operator.
"I've got a few new things," he said, suffused with pleasure, but
lowering his voice as though he feared his fellow-passengers
might be in league to despoil him.
She returned a sympathetic enquiry, and gradually he was drawn on
to talk of his latest purchases. It was the one subject which
enabled him to forget himself, or allowed him, rather, to
remember himself without constraint, because he was at home in
it, and could assert a superiority that there were few to
dispute. Hardly any of his acquaintances cared for Americana, or
|
