| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: munched at the hay that had been thrown to them. The smoke of many fires
curled upward, and near the blaze hovered ruddy-faced women who stirred the
contents of steaming kettles. One man swung an axe with a vigorous sweep, and
the clean, sharp strokes rang on the air; another hammered stakes into the
ground on which to hang a kettle. Before a large cabin a fur-trader was
exhibiting his wares to three Indians. A second redskin was carrying a pack of
pelts from a canoe drawn up on the river bank. A small group of persons stood
near; some were indifferent, and others gazed curiously at the savages. Two
children peeped from behind their mother's skirts as if half-curious,
half-frightened.
From this scene, the significance of which had just dawned on him, Joe turned
The Spirit of the Border |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: eyes enter the courtyard on horseback. Too soon a ghastly fact forced
itself on me. This Englishwoman, who seems to me about thirty-six, is
known as Mme. Gaston. This discovery was my deathblow.
I saw him next walking to the Tuileries with a couple of children. Oh!
my dear, two children, the living images of Gaston! The likeness is so
strong that it bears scandal on the face of it. And what pretty
children! in their handsome English costumes! She is the mother of his
children. Here is the key to the whole mystery.
The woman herself might be a Greek statue, stepped down from some
monument. Cold and white as marble, she moves sedately with a mother's
pride. She is undeniably beautiful but heavy as a man-of-war. There is
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: grenadier, whose name was Fleuriot, she was dragged about for two
years at the heels of the army, the plaything of a crowd of wretches.
She was often, they tell me, barefooted, and scarcely clothed; for
months together, she had no care, no food but what she could pick up;
sometimes kept in hospitals, sometimes driven away like an animal, God
alone knows the horrors that poor unfortunate creature has survived.
She was locked up in a madhouse, in a little town in Germany, at the
time her relatives, thinking her dead, divided her property. In 1816,
the grenadier Fleuriot was at an inn in Strasburg, where she went
after making her escape from the madhouse. Several peasants told the
grenadier that she had lived for a whole month in the forest, where
|
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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: lake, and the fountain which breathed out fire, in the
darkness of the ancient oakwood, beneath the mountain of the
hundred springs. And he led him to the holy oak, where the
black dove settled in old times, and was changed into the
priestess of Zeus, and gave oracles to all nations round.
And he bade him cut down a bough, and sacrifice to Hera and
to Zeus; and they took the bough and came to Iolcos, and
nailed it to the beak-head of the ship.
And at last the ship was finished, and they tried to launch
her down the beach; but she was too heavy for them to move
her, and her keel sank deep into the sand. Then all the
|
