| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: "Why was I distrusted?" seemed the answer of the husband.
The scene was one that might have passed between two tigers
recognizing the futility of a struggle and, after a moment's
hesitation, turning away, without even a roar.
"Jacquet," said Jules, "have you attended to everything?"
"Yes, to everything," replied his friend, "but a man had forestalled
me who had ordered and paid for all."
"He tears his daughter from me!" cried the husband, with the violence
of despair.
Jules rushed back to his wife's room; but the father was there no
longer. Clemence had now been placed in a leaden coffin, and workmen
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: sort of triumph over them, and they seem to experience a corresponding
feeling of admiration at me, and at the greatness of the city, which
appears to them, when they are under the influence of the speaker, more
wonderful than ever. This consciousness of dignity lasts me more than
three days, and not until the fourth or fifth day do I come to my senses
and know where I am; in the meantime I have been living in the Islands of
the Blest. Such is the art of our rhetoricians, and in such manner does
the sound of their words keep ringing in my ears.
MENEXENUS: You are always making fun of the rhetoricians, Socrates; this
time, however, I am inclined to think that the speaker who is chosen will
not have much to say, for he has been called upon to speak at a moment's
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: handkerchief that was knotted about his neck and stared moodily off
at the skyline.
"No, you're mistaken. This would bore you after a while. You
can't shake the fever of the other life. I've tried it. There was
a time when the gay fellows of Rome could trot down into the
Thebaid and burrow into the sandhills and get rid of it. But it's
all too complex now. You see we've made our dissipations so dainty
and respectable that they've gone further in than the flesh, and
taken hold of the ego proper. You couldn't rest, even here. The
war cry would follow you."
"You don't waste words, Wyllis, but you never miss fire. I
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: observing of them thought him deaf and dumb.
When it happened that the distances between the bowls and the
/cochonnet/ had to be measured, the cane of this silent being was used
as a measure, the players coming up and taking it from the icy hands
of the old man and returning it without a word or even a sign of
friendliness. The loan of his cane seemed a servitude to which he had
negatively consented. When a shower fell, he stayed near the
/cochonnet/, the slave of the bowls, and the guardian of the
unfinished game. Rain affected him no more than the fine weather did;
he was, like the players themselves, an intermediary species between a
Parisian who has the lowest intellect of his kind and an animal which
Ferragus |
