| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: the fever, and all sorts of pain and trouble? For our life is
full of trouble, and if God sends us good, he seems to send bad
too. How is it? How is it?
"Ah, dear friends, we are in sad want of good news about God; and
what does other good news signify if we haven't that? For
everything else comes to an end, and when we die we leave it all.
But God lasts when everything else is gone. What shall we do if
he is not our friend?"
Then Dinah told how the good news had been brought, and how the
mind of God towards the poor had been made manifest in the life of
Jesus, dwelling on its lowliness and its acts of mercy.
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: I turned it over with a backstitch on the selvage edge.
Pause.
Yes, I like that way, too; but I think it's better to baste it
on with Valenciennes or bombazine, or something of that sort.
It gives it such an air--and attracts so much noise.
Pause.
It's forty-ninth Deuteronomy, sixty-forth to ninety-seventh inclusive.
I think we ought all to read it often.
Pause.
Perhaps so; I generally use a hair pin.
Pause.
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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 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: carry out a plan already half-successful. No doubt she was trying to
bring her victim, giddy from the fall, to the moral intoxication so
dangerous to young women living in the wilds of nature, whose
imagination, deprived of other nourishment, is all the more ardent
when the occasion comes to exercise it. Boiled wine, which Catherine
had held in reserve, was to end the matter by intoxicating the victim.
"What do they put into it?" asked La Pechina.
"All sorts of things," replied Catherine, glancing back to see if her
brother were coming; "in the first place, those what d' ye call 'ems
that come from India, cinnamon, and herbs that change you by magic,--
you fancy you have everything you wish for; boiled wine makes you
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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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: "Or your mistress, you old rascal."
"No, on my honor. The Comtesse de Gondreville is the only person
capable of inviting people whom no one knows."
In spite of this very acrimonious comment, the fat little man's lips
did not lose the smile which the Colonel's suggestion had brought to
them. Montcornet returned to the lawyer, who had rejoined a
neighboring group, intent on asking, but in vain, for information as
to the fair unknown. He grasped Martial's arm, and said in his ear:
"My dear Martial, mind what you are about. Madame de Vaudremont has
been watching you for some minutes with ominous attentiveness; she is
a woman who can guess by the mere movement of your lips what you say
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