| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: bells for the necks of camels; and as they descended deeper into the
rocky foundation, it became evident that the whole mass was a
veritable honeycomb of cells, and that below those already seen were
many others.
Vitellius, Phineas, his interpreter, and Sisenna, chief of the
publicans, walked among these gloomy cells, attended by three eunuchs
bearing torches.
In the deep shadows hideous instruments, invented by barbarians, could
be seen: tomahawks studded with nails; poisoned javelins; pincers
resembling the jaws of crocodiles; in short, the tetrarch possessed in
his castle munitions of war sufficient for forty thousand men.
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: Morgan and General Forrest and the triumph at the Second Battle of
Bull Run hung up like visible Yankee scalps to gloat over. But
there was a heavy price on these scalps. The hospitals and homes
of Atlanta were overflowing with the sick and wounded, and more
and more women were appearing in black. The monotonous rows of
soldiers' graves at Oakland Cemetery stretched longer every day.
Confederate money had dropped alarmingly and the price of food and
clothing had risen accordingly. The commissary was laying such
heavy levies on foodstuffs that the tables of Atlanta were
beginning to suffer. White flour was scarce and so expensive that
corn bread was universal instead of biscuits, rolls and waffles.
Gone With the Wind |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: works on a larger scale, but has painted the whole picture with
brighter and more costly colors than she used in delineating and
in beautifying the Old World.... The heavens of America appear
infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, the cold
is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter the
thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is
stronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the
rivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader." This
statement will do at least to set against Buffon's account of
this part of the world and its productions.
Linnaeus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies laeta, glabra plantis
Walking |
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 Second Home by Honore de Balzac: villages, its horizon of blue hills, its church towers, its meadows
and fields, whence a murmur came up, to die on her ear like the swell
of the ocean. The three wanderers made their way by the bank of an
artificial stream and came to the Swiss valley, where stands a chalet
that had more than once given shelter to Hortense and Napoleon. When
Caroline had seated herself with pious reverence on the mossy wooden
bench where kings and princesses and the Emperor had rested, Madame
Crochard expressed a wish to have a nearer view of a bridge that hung
across between two rocks at some little distance, and bent her steps
towards that rural curiosity, leaving her daughter in Monsieur Roger's
care, though telling them that she would not go out of sight.
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