| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: time is it that we were clear of the town. So weary of it am I that
the sight of it hurts my eyes."
"Go to the coachbuilder's," commanded Chichikov, "and have
sledge-runners fitted to the koliaska."
Chichikov then made his way into the town--though not with the object
of paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have
given rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an
unobtrusive call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his
latest suit. There he now purchased four more arshins of the same
smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with
the intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: staircase at the end, with windows appropriately termed "borrowed
lights"--or, in French, jours de souffrance. It was a greenish
structure; the ground floor occupied by a furniture-dealer, while
each floor seemed to shelter a different and independent form of
misery. Throwing up his arm with a vehement gesture, Desplein
exclaimed:
"I lived up there for two years."
"I know; Arthez lived there; I went up there almost every day
during my first youth; we used to call it then the pickle-jar of
great men! What then?"
"The mass I have just attended is connected with some events
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: raised himself to his feet, and tried to climb up the chain, and
then something struck his head. Black and shining with the
moonlight, the throat of the furnace rose about him.
Horrocks, he saw, stood above him by one of the trucks of fuel
on the rail. The gesticulating figure was bright and white in the
moonlight, and shouting, "Fizzle, you fool! Fizzle, you hunter of
women! You hot-blooded hound! Boil! boil! boil!"
Suddenly he caught up a handful of coal out of the truck, and
flung it deliberately, lump after lump, at Raut.
"Horrocks!" cried Raut. "Horrocks!"
He clung crying to the chain, pulling himself up from the
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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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: Rabelais exhibits it finely."
"You are such a learned woman! I am so vexed that I can't sing your
praises in verse. If I were not the king, I would take my brother's
tutor, Amyot, and let him make me as accomplished as Charles."
"You need not envy your brother, who writes verses and shows them to
me, asking for mine in return. You are the best of the four, and will
make as good a king as you are the dearest of lovers. Perhaps that is
why your mother does not like you! But never mind! I, dear heart, will
love you for all the world."
"I have no great merit in loving such a perfect queen," said the
little king. "I don't know what prevented me from kissing you before
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