| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: presiding over them were young Gaston and the pale Padre, walking up and
down the paths, beating time or singing now one part and now another. And
so it was that the wild cattle on the uplands would hear Trovatore hummed
by a passing vaquero, while the same melody was filling the streets of
the far-off world.
For three days Gaston Villere remained at Santa Ysabel del Mar; and
though not a word of restlessness came from him, his host could read San
Francisco and the gold-mines in his countenance. No, the young man could
not have stayed here for twenty years! And the Padre forbore urging his
guest to extend his visit.
"But the world is small," the guest declared at parting. "Some day it
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: found the medical assistant, a tall man, with a blotchy face, who
had for a long time been bothering her. In trying to get away
from him Maslova gave him such a push that he knocked his head
against a shelf, from which two bottles fell and broke. The head
doctor, who was passing at that moment, heard the sound of
breaking glass, and saw Maslova run out, quite red, and shouted
to her:
"Ah, my good woman, if you start intriguing here, I'll send you
about your business. What is the meaning of it?" he went on,
addressing the medical assistant, and looking at him over his
spectacles.
Resurrection |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: buttes. Through any one of the various openings between them, we
rode to find ourselves on the borders of an undulating grass
country of low rounded hills with wide valleys winding between
them. In these valleys and on these hills was the game.
Daylight of the day I would tell about found us just at the edge
of the little buttes. Down one of the slopes the growing half
light revealed two oryx feeding, magnificent big creatures, with
straight rapier horns three feet in length. These were most
exciting and desirable, so off my horse I got and began to sneak
up on them through the low tufts of grass. They fed quite calmly.
I congratulated myself, and slipped nearer. Without even looking
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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 Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: As soon as Elisabeth knew how to hold a needle, her mother had her
mend the household linen and her father's coats. Always at work, like
a servant, she never went out alone. Though living close by the
boulevard du Temple, where Franconi, La Gaite, and l'Ambigu-Comique
were within a stone's throw, and, further on, the Porte-Saint-Martin,
Elisabeth had never seen a comedy. When she asked to "see what it was
like" (with the Abbe Gaudron's permission, be it understood), Monsieur
Baudoyer took her--for the glory of the thing, and to show her the
finest that was to be seen--to the Opera, where they were playing "The
Chinese Laborer." Elisabeth thought "the comedy" as wearisome as the
plague of flies, and never wished to see another. On Sundays, after
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