| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: The grotesque appearance of this last speaker drew Marche-a-Terre from
the pious reflections he had been making on the accomplishment of this
miracle of coming to life which, according to the Abbe Gudin would
happen to every true defender of religion and the king.
"You see, Galope-Chopine," he said to the fourth man gravely, "what
comes of omitting even the smallest duty commanded by our holy
religion. It is a warning to us, given by Saint Anne of Auray, to be
rigorous with ourselves for the slightest sin. Your cousin Pille-Miche
has asked the Gars to give you the surveillance of Fougeres, and the
Gars consents, and you'll be well paid--but you know with what flour
we bake a traitor's bread."
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: but each was conscious of an unusual buoyancy, which appeared to lift up their
bodies and give as it were, wings to their feet. If Ben Zoof had expressed
his sensations in words, he would have said that he felt "up to anything,"
and he had even forgotten to taste so much as a crust of bread, a lapse
of memory of which the worthy soldier was rarely guilty.
As these thoughts were crossing his mind, a harsh bark was heard to
the left of the footpath, and a jackal was seen emerging from a large
grove of lentisks. Regarding the two wayfarers with manifest uneasiness,
the beast took up its position at the foot of a rock, more than thirty
feet in height. It belonged to an African species distinguished
by a black spotted skin, and a black line down the front of the legs.
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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 Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: Clym's grief became mitigated by wearing itself out.
His strength returned, and a month after the visit of
Thomasin he might have been seen walking about the garden.
Endurance and despair, equanimity and gloom, the tints of
health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly in his face.
He was now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that
related to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he
was thinking of it none the less, she was only too glad
to escape the topic ever to bring it up anew. When his
mind had been weaker his heart had led him to speak out;
but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank
Return of the Native |
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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: telegraph as well as any son of Israel in Chicago. But this is
absurd.
The East is not the West, and these men must continue to deal
with the machinery of life, and to call it progress. Their very
preachers dare not rebuke them. They gloss over the hunting for
money and the thrice-sharpened bitterness of Adam's curse, by
saying that such things dower a man with a larger range of
thoughts and higher aspirations. They do not say, "Free
yourselves from your own slavery," but rather, "If you can
possibly manage it, do not set quite so much store on the things
of this world."
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