| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: my future, filling it with books as an engineer or builder traces on
vacant ground a palace or a fort.
The sea was beautiful; I had just dressed after bathing; and I awaited
Pauline, who was also bathing, in a granite cove floored with fine
sand, the most coquettish bath-room that Nature ever devised for her
water-fairies. The spot was at the farther end of Croisic, a dainty
little peninsula in Brittany; it was far from the port, and so
inaccessible that the coast-guard seldom thought it necessary to pass
that way. To float in ether after floating on the wave!--ah! who would
not have floated on the future as I did! Why was I thinking? Whence
comes evil?--who knows! Ideas drop into our hearts or into our heads
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: defatigable forager departed immediately with his
prize. With scarcely a glance at the scene on the
sidewalk below, where the officers were loading their
prisoners into the patrol wagons, be moved homeward
with long, swift strides.
His heart was light as be went. So rode the
knights back to Camelot after perils and high deeds
done for their ladies fair. The Kid's lady had com-
manded him and be had obeyed. True, it was but a
peach that she had craved; but it had been no small
deed to glean a peach at midnight from that wintry
The Voice of the City |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: a stamp, and as he was sipping the cool, effervescent water he
considered what he should say. But his thoughts wandered, and he
could not manage to compose a letter.
My dear Nathalie,--I cannot go away with the heavy impression
that yesterday's talk with your husband has left," he began.
"What next? Shall I ask him to forgive me what I said yesterday?
But I only said what I felt, and he will think that I am taking
it back. Besides, this interference of his in my private matters.
. . No, I cannot," and again he felt hatred rising in his heart
towards that man so foreign to him. He folded the unfinished
letter and put it in his pocket, paid, went out, and again got
Resurrection |
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 Phaedo by Plato: have the trouble of washing my body after I am dead.
When he had done speaking, Crito said: And have you any commands for us,
Socrates--anything to say about your children, or any other matter in which
we can serve you?
Nothing particular, Crito, he replied: only, as I have always told you,
take care of yourselves; that is a service which you may be ever rendering
to me and mine and to all of us, whether you promise to do so or not. But
if you have no thought for yourselves, and care not to walk according to
the rule which I have prescribed for you, not now for the first time,
however much you may profess or promise at the moment, it will be of no
avail.
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