| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: here and there the outline of a wooded sugar-loaf in black, here
and there a white irregular patch to represent a cultivated farm,
and here and there a blot where the Loire, the Gazeille, or the
Laussonne wandered in a gorge.
Soon we were on a high-road, and surprise seized on my mind as I
beheld a village of some magnitude close at hand; for I had been
told that the neighbourhood of the lake was uninhabited except by
trout. The road smoked in the twilight with children driving home
cattle from the fields; and a pair of mounted stride-legged women,
hat and cap and all, dashed past me at a hammering trot from the
canton where they had been to church and market. I asked one of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: also that instead of flesh the brain needed the hair to be a light covering
or guard, which would give shade in summer and shelter in winter, and at
the same time would not impede our quickness of perception. From the
combination of sinew, skin, and bone, in the structure of the finger, there
arises a triple compound, which, when dried up, takes the form of one hard
skin partaking of all three natures, and was fabricated by these second
causes, but designed by mind which is the principal cause with an eye to
the future. For our creators well knew that women and other animals would
some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that many animals
would require the use of nails for many purposes; wherefore they fashioned
in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails. For this purpose
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: One of his favorite Scripture quotations was, "Wait on the Lord."
He had applied it to real estate and to people, with profitable
results.
But to human persons the sensation of being waited for is not
always agreeable. Sometimes, especially with the young, it
produces
a vague restlessness, a dumb resentment, which is increased by
the fact that one can hardly explain or justify it. Of this
John Weightman was not conscious. It lay beyond his horizon.
He did not take it into account in the plan of life which he made
for
|
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 A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: severity, came to hate the dispiriting personages about them with
their hollow eyes and scowling faces.
On the gloom of this life one sole figure of a man, that of a music-
master, stood vigorously forth. The confessors had decided that music
was a Christian art, born of the Catholic Church and developed within
her. The two Maries were therefore permitted to study music. A
spinster in spectacles, who taught singing and the piano in a
neighboring convent, wearied them with exercises; but when the eldest
girl was ten years old, the Comte de Granville insisted on the
importance of giving her a master. Madame de Granville gave all the
value of conjugal obedience to this needed concession,--it is part of
|
