| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: cleverest men, but in love with obscurity. No one but the Duke, my
master, understands music so thoroughly as he does; indeed he is known
here as /il Fanatico/."
After sitting a few minutes listening to the eager war of words
between the physician and the Duchess, who showed much ingenious
eloquence, the Italians, one by one, took leave, and went off to tell
the news in every box, that la Cataneo, who was regarded as a woman of
great wit and spirit, had, on the question of Italy, defeated a famous
French doctor. This was the talk of the evening.
As soon as the Frenchman found himself alone with the Duchess and the
Prince, he understood that they were to be left together, and took
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: "Those times you tell of must have been great," I said, regretfully. "I'd
like to have been here then. But isn't the country all settled now? Aren't
the Indians dead? There's no more fighting?"
"It's not like it used to be, but there's still warm places in the West.
Not that the Indians break out often any more. But bad men are almost as
bad, if not so plentiful, as when Billy the Kid run these parts. I saw two
men shot an' another knifed jest before I went East to St. Louis."
"Where?"
"In Arizona. Holston is the station where I get off, an' it happened near
there."
"Holston is where I'm going."
The Young Forester |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: crabbed, elderly priests--gazed upon her with dilated nostrils.
Next she began to whirl frantically around the table where Antipas the
tetrarch was seated. He leaned towards the flying figure, and in a
voice half choked with the voluptuous sighs of a mad desire, he
sighed: "Come to me! Come!" But she whirled on, while the music of
dulcimers swelled louder and the excited spectators roared their
applause.
The tetrarch called again, louder than before: "Come to me! Come! Thou
shalt have Capernaum, the plains of Tiberias! my citadels! yea, the
half of my kingdom!"
Again the dancer paused; then, like a flash, she threw herself upon
Herodias |
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 Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: 'O, come, now, Eddy,' says Jimmy, 'show up; you must a kept part of that bar'l
to prove the thing by. Show us the bunghole--do--and we'll all believe you.'
'Say, boys,' says Bill, 'less divide it up. Thar's thirteen of us.
I can swaller a thirteenth of the yarn, if you can worry down the rest.'
Ed got up mad and said they could all go to some place which he ripped
out pretty savage, and then walked off aft cussing to himself,
and they yelling and jeering at him, and roaring and laughing so you
could hear them a mile.
'Boys, we'll split a watermelon on that,' says the Child of Calamity;
and he come rummaging around in the dark amongst the shingle bundles
where I was, and put his hand on me. I was warm and soft and naked;
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