| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: existence to which we give the name of Heaven in its highest meaning.
This woman, this angel, always was with him, seated at her embroidery
frame; and each time she drew the needle out she gazed at Lambert with
sad and tender feeling. Unable to endure this terrible sight--for I
could not, like Mademoiselle de Villenoix, read all his secrets--I
went out, and she came with me to walk for a few minutes and talk of
herself and of Lambert.
"Louis must, no doubt, appear to be mad," said she. "But he is not, if
the term mad ought only to be used in speaking of those whose brain is
for some unknown cause diseased, and who can show no reason in their
actions. Everything in my husband is perfectly balanced. Though he did
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: was a joy to see. But the result of all this was a
beautiful and unending family quarrel, in which I was
the bone of contention.
No, my home-life was not happy. I smile to myself as I
write the phrase. Home-life! Home! I had no home in
the modern sense of the term. My home was an
association, not a habitation. I lived in my mother's
care, not in a house. And my mother lived anywhere, so
long as when night came she was above the ground.
My mother was old-fashioned. She still clung to her
trees. It is true, the more progressive members of our
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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 The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: traditions of slavery days--of making his employer's interest
his. It was always "we" with Thomas; I miss him sorely; pipe-
smoking, obsequious, not over reliable, kindly old man!
On Thursday Mr. Harton, the Armstrongs' legal adviser, called up
from town. He had been advised, he said, that Mrs. Armstrong was
coming east with her husband's body and would arrive Monday. He
came with some hesitation, he went on, to the fact that he had
been further instructed to ask me to relinquish my lease on
Sunnyside, as it was Mrs. Armstrong's desire to come directly
there.
I was aghast.
The Circular Staircase |
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 The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: absolutely good.
It is to be hoped that we all have some friend, perhaps more
often feminine than masculine, and young than old, whose soul is
of this sky-blue tint, whose affinities are rather with flowers
and birds and all enchanting innocencies than with dark human
passions, who can think no ill of man or God, and in whom
religious gladness, being in possession from the outset, needs no
deliverance from any antecedent burden.
"God has two families of children on this earth," says Francis W.
Newman,[32] "the once-born and the twice-born," and the once-born
he describes as follows: "They see God, not as a strict Judge,
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