| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: The day of the wedding arrived. It was a cool but bright,
cheerful April day. People were driving about Ukleevo from early
morning with pairs or teams of three horses decked with
many-coloured ribbons on their yokes and manes, with a jingle of
bells. The rooks, disturbed by this activity, were cawing noisily
in the willows, and the starlings sang their loudest unceasingly
as though rejoicing that there was a wedding at the Tsybukins'.
Indoors the tables were already covered with long fish, smoked
hams, stuffed fowls, boxes of sprats, pickled savouries of
various sorts, and a number of bottles of vodka and wine; there
was a smell of smoked sausage and of sour tinned lobster. Old
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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 Koran: were obedience and a reasonable speech! But when the matter is
determined on, then if they believed God it were better for them.
Would ye perhaps, if ye had turned back, have done evil in the
land and severed the bonds of kinship?
It is these whom God has cursed, and has made them deaf, and has
blinded their eyesight! Do they not peruse the Koran? or are there
locks upon their hearts?
Verily, those who turn their backs after the guidance that has
been manifested to them-Satan induces them,- but (God) lets them go
'On for a time!
That is for that they say to those who are averse from what God
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: moment overlook the girl's fatuity and folly. She was always
accessible to him--that I knew; for if she had told him he was an
idiot to dream she could dream of him, she would have rebuked the
imputation of having failed to make it clear that she would always
be glad to regard him as a friend. What were most of her friends--
what were all of them--but repudiated idiots? I was perfectly
aware that in her conversations and confidences I myself for
instance had a niche in the gallery. As regards poor Dawling I
knew how often he still called on the Hammond Synges. It was not
there but under the wing of the Floyd-Taylors that her intimacy
with Lord Iffield most flourished. At all events, when a week
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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 The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: be able to see the sun. The man who on hearing a diplomate he has
saved ask, "How is the Emperor?" could say, "The courtier is
alive; the man will follow!"--that man is not merely a surgeon or
a physician, he is prodigiously witty also. Hence a patient and
diligent student of human nature will admit Desplein's exorbitant
pretensions, and believe--as he himself believed--that he might
have been no less great as a minister than he was as a surgeon.
Among the riddles which Desplein's life presents to many of his
contemporaries, we have chosen one of the most interesting,
because the answer is to be found at the end of the narrative,
and will avenge him for some foolish charges.
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