| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: know all that. You are too polite to continue this subject if I
request you to leave it, and too gallant--in the old-fashioned sense
of the word," she added with a slight tone of irony--"not to agree
that you have no right to question me. It would be ridiculous in me to
defend myself. I trust that you will have a sufficiently good opinion
of my character to believe in the profound contempt which, I assure
you, I feel for money,--although I was married, without any fortune,
to a man of immense wealth. It is nothing to me whether your nephew is
rich or poor; if I have received him in my house, and do now receive
him, it is because I consider him worthy to be counted among my
friends. All my friends, monsieur, respect each other; they know that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: sleeplessness; but my eyes, although encircled
by a brownish shadow, glittered proudly and
inexorably. I was satisfied with myself.
I ordered the horses to be saddled, dressed my-
self, and ran down to the baths. Plunging into
the cold, sparkling water of the Narzan Spring, I
felt my bodily and mental powers returning. I
left the baths as fresh and hearty as if I was off
to a ball. After that, who shall say that the
soul is not dependent upon the body! . . .
On my return, I found the doctor at my rooms.
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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 Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: imagined by the myth-makers. The superstition concerning the
hand of glory is not so hard to interpret. In the mythology of
the Finns, the storm-cloud is a black man with a bright copper
hand; and in Hindustan, Indra Savitar, the deity who slays the
demon of the cloud, is golden-handed. The selection of the
hand of a man who has been hanged is probably due to the
superstition which regarded the storm-god Odin as peculiarly
the lord of the gallows. The man who is raised upon the
gallows is placed directly in the track of the wild huntsman,
who comes with his hounds to carry off the victim; and hence
the notion, which, according to Mr. Kelly, is "very common in
Myths and Myth-Makers |
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 Aesop's Fables by Aesop: The Man and the Satyr
A Man had lost his way in a wood one bitter winter's night.
As he was roaming about, a Satyr came up to him, and finding that
he had lost his way, promised to give him a lodging for the night,
and guide him out of the forest in the morning. As he went along
to the Satyr's cell, the Man raised both his hands to his mouth
and kept on blowing at them. "What do you do that for?" said the
Satyr.
"My hands are numb with the cold," said the Man, "and my
breath warms them."
After this they arrived at the Satyr's home, and soon the
Aesop's Fables |
