| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: remained. Some of the windows were boarded up, and the building
in which the foreman lived, the kitchen, the stables--all were
grey and decaying. Only the garden had not decayed, but had
grown, and was in full bloom; from over the fence the cherry,
apple, and plum trees looked like white clouds. The lilac bushes
that formed the hedge were in full bloom, as they had been when,
14 years ago, Nekhludoff had played gorelki with the 15-year-old
Katusha, and had fallen and got his hand stung by the nettles
behind one of those lilac bushes. The larch that his aunt Sophia
had planted near the house, which then was only a short stick,
had grown into a tree, the trunk of which would have made a beam,
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: Josepha in /William Tell/, set down the plates and dishes on the table
with a bang, and called aloud to her husband:
"Cibot! run to the /Cafe Turc/ for two small cups of coffee, and tell
the man at the stove that it is for me."
Then she sat down and rested her hands on her massive knees, and gazed
out of the window at the opposite wall.
"I will go to-night and see what Ma'am Fontaine says," she thought.
(Madame Fontaine told fortunes on the cards for all the servants in
the quarter of the Marais.) "Since these two gentlemen came here, we
have put two thousand francs in the savings bank. Two thousand francs
in eight years! What luck! Would it be better to make no profit out of
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: in the vaults of the Holy Office or to immure them in the walls of
nunneries?
When I had lived a month in Tobasco I had learned enough of the
language to talk with Marina, with whom I grew friendly, though no
more, and it was from her that I gathered the most of my knowledge,
and also many hints as to the conduct necessary to my safety. In
return I taught her something of my own faith, and of the customs
of the Europeans, and it was the knowledge that she gained from me
which afterwards made her so useful to the Spaniards, and prepared
her to accept their religion, giving her insight into the ways of
white people.
Montezuma's Daughter |
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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: measure out the ground of the site of the battle and then test the
manoeuvres given, he will find how inaccurate the accounts are.
In other cases he appeals to public documents, the importance of
which he was always foremost in recognising; showing, for instance,
by a document in the public archives of Rhodes how inaccurate were
the accounts given of the battle of Lade by Zeno and Antisthenes.
Or he appeals to psychological probability, rejecting, for
instance, the scandalous stories told of Philip of Macedon, simply
from the king's general greatness of character, and arguing that a
boy so well educated and so respectably connected as Demochares
(xii. 14) could never have been guilty of that of which evil rumour
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