| 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: has been to me, in spite of all suspicions apparently so legitimate.
Father, my love is my very life. Would you see me die? Ah! I have
suffered so much that my life, I feel it! is in danger."
"And all because of the curiosity of that miserable Parisian?" cried
Ferragus. "I'd burn Paris down if I lost you, my daughter. Ha! you may
know what a lover is, but you don't yet know what a father can do."
"Father, you frighten me when you look at me in that way. Don't weigh
such different feelings in the same scales. I had a husband before I
knew that my father was living--"
"If your husband was the first to lay kisses on your forehead, I was
the first to drop tears upon it," replied Ferragus. "But don't feel
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: at the walls. She missed combing her hair, lacing her shoes, tucking
her in her bed, and the bright face and little hand when they used to
go out for a walk. In order to occupy herself she tried to make lace.
But her clumsy fingers broke the threads; she had no heart for
anything, lost her sleep and "wasted away," as she put it.
In order to have some distraction, she asked leave to receive the
visits of her nephew Victor.
He would come on Sunday, after church, with ruddy cheeks and bared
chest, bringing with him the scent of the country. She would set the
table and they would sit down opposite each other, and eat their
dinner; she ate as little as possible, herself, to avoid any extra
A Simple Soul |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: by the canary -- which, also, is more portable.
A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang --
This quaint, sweet song sang she;
"It's O for a youth with a football bang
And a muscle fair to see!
The Captain he
Of a team to be!
On the gridiron he shall shine,
A monarch by right divine,
And never to roast on it -- me!"
Opoline Jones
The Devil's Dictionary |
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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: save, society once for all, by proclaiming their own regime as supreme,
and relieve bourgeois society wholly of the care of ruling itself? The
barrack and the bivouac, the sabre and the musket, the moustache and the
soldier's jacket were all the more bound to hit upon this idea, seeing
that they could then also expect better cash payment for their increased
deserts, while at the merely periodic states of siege and the transitory
savings of society at the behest of this or that bourgeois faction, very
little solid matter fell to them except some dead and wounded, besides
some friendly bourgeois grimaces. Should not the military, finally, in
and for its own interest, play the game of "state of siege," and
simultaneously besiege the bourgeois exchanges? Moreover, it must not
|
