| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: the way!" there. A street which does not wear out, a street which
leads to the abbey of Grand-mont, and to a trench, which works very
well with the bridge, and at the end of which is a finer fair ground.
A street well paved, well built, well washed, as clean as a glass,
populous, silent at certain times, a coquette with a sweet nightcap on
its pretty blue tiles--to be short, it is the street where I was born;
it is the queen of streets, always between the earth and sky; a street
with a fountain; a street which lacks nothing to be celebrated among
streets; and, in fact, it is the real street, the only street of
Tours. If there are others, they are dark, muddy, narrow, and damp,
and all come respectfully to salute this noble street, which commands
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: His heart swelled; his eyelids were wet with tears. Then, suddenly,
the countess showed him a bit of sugar she had found in his pocket
while he was speaking to her. He had mistaken for human thought the
amount of reason required for a monkey's trick. Philippe dropped to
the ground unconscious. Monsieur Fanjat found the countess sitting on
the colonel's body. She was biting her sugar, and testifying her
pleasure by pretty gestures and affectations with which, had she her
reason, she might have imitated her parrot or her cat.
"Ah! my friend," said Philippe, when he came to his senses, "I die
every day, every moment! I love too well! I could still bear all, if,
in her madness, she had kept her woman's nature. But to see her always
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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 An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: cannot. I can read Holy Scriptures, and they cannot. I can pray,
they cannot. Coming down to their level, I can do their
dialectics and philosophy better than all of them put together.
Plus I know that not one of them understands Aristotle. If, in
fact, any one of them can correctly understand one part or chapter
of Aristotle, I will eat my hat! No, I am not overdoing it for I
have been educated in and have practiced their science since my
childhood. I recognize how broad and deep it is. They, too, know
that everything they can do, I can do. Yet they handle me like a
stranger in their discipline, these incurable fellows, as if I had
just arrived this morning and had never seen or heard what they
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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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: moonshine; and high overhead, in some lone house, there burned one
lighted window, one square spark of red in the huge field of sad
nocturnal colouring.
At a certain point, as I went downward, turning many acute angles,
the moon disappeared behind the hill; and I pursued my way in great
darkness, until another turning shot me without preparation into
St. Germain de Calberte. The place was asleep and silent, and
buried in opaque night. Only from a single open door, some
lamplight escaped upon the road to show me that I was come among
men's habitations. The two last gossips of the evening, still
talking by a garden wall, directed me to the inn. The landlady was
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