| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: his fat pocket-book in the middle of the table, so that a hunk of
bread flew off a plate. A revolting expression of anger,
resentment, avarice -- all mixed together -- flamed on his face.
"Take everything!" he shouted in an unnatural voice; "plunder me!
Take it all! Strangle me!"
He jumped up from the table, clutched at his head, and ran
staggering about the room.
"Strip me to the last thread!" he shouted in a shrill voice.
"Squeeze out the last drop! Rob me! Wring my neck!"
The student flushed and dropped his eyes. He could not go on
eating. Fedosya Semyonovna, who had not after twenty-five years
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather:
"I don't know all of them, but I know
lindens are. The old people in the mountains
plant lindens to purify the forest, and to do
away with the spells that come from the old
trees they say have lasted from heathen times.
I'm a good Catholic, but I think I could get
along with caring for trees, if I hadn't anything
else."
"That's a poor saying," said Emil, stooping
O Pioneers! |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: conversation, to rouse up ourselves to the like zeal; and because
we would catch some vision of the rest and felicity wherein they
now live, and thus, as we call them blessed, and provoke one
another to emulate them, strive to follow in their footsteps:
because moreover, we find thereby that the thought of death,
which is right profitable, lendeth wings of zeal to our religious
exercises; and lastly, because we derive sanctification from
their touch."
Again said the king, "If the thought of death be profitable, as
ye say, why should ye not reach that thought of death by the
bones of the bodies that are now your own, and are soon to
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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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: a daughter, and the farmer in the outskirts had two, but we never saw them.
She reigned alone. All the men worshipped her. She was the only woman
they had to think of. They talked of her on the stoep, at the market, at
the hotel; they watched for her at street corners; they hated the man she
bowed to or walked with down the street. They brought flowers to the front
door; they offered her their horses; they begged her to marry them when
they dared. Partly, there was something noble and heroic in this devotion
of men to the best woman they knew; partly there was something natural in
it, that these men, shut off from the world, should pour at the feet of one
woman the worship that otherwise would have been given to twenty; and
partly there was something mean in their envy of one another. If she had
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