| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: mossy stones in the bed of the stream, he heard the water
secretly tinkling downward, ever downward, as he climbed
upward.
The forest grew thinner and lighter. He came to a fair
meadow on the slope of the mountain. Beyond the meadow was a
high cliff, and in the face of the cliff an opening like the
entrance to a path. Dark was the way, but smooth, and he
followed easily on till he came near to a vast cavern from
which a flood of radiance streamed to meet him.
As he entered he beheld a mighty beam of light which
sprang from the ground, shattering itself against the roof in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: above her head on the pillow. She was thinking, and thinking, and
she forgot that she was thinking her thinking aloud, and she said:
``Alice has a mama. Robbie has a mama. Katie has a mama. Where is
Bessie Bell's mama? Never mind: Bessie Bell will find a mama.''
Then Sister Helen Vincula, who was wide awake, too, said:
``Ah me, ah me.''
Bessie Bell said: ``Sister Helen Vincula, did you call me?''
Sister Helen Vincula said:
``No, child: go to sleep.''
* * *
* *
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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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: of scraps an intelligent inventory of which would have revealed the
lives and habits of every dweller in the house,--bits of printed
cottons, tea-leaves, artificial flower-petals faded and worthless,
vegetable parings, papers, scraps of metal. At every sweep of her
broom the old woman bared the soul of the gutter, that black fissure
on which a porter's mind is ever bent. The poor lover examined this
scene, like a thousand others which our heaving Paris presents daily;
but he examined it mechanically, as a man absorbed in thought, when,
happening to look up, he found himself all but nose to nose with a man
who had just entered the gateway.
In appearance this man was a beggar, but not the Parisian beggar,--
Ferragus |
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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: faithful to them. His public character consoles me for the sufferings
his private life has inflicted upon me-- Have you never remarked," she
went on, cleverly leaving the prince aside, "you who observe so much,
that men have two natures: one of their homes, their wives, their
private lives,--this is their true self; here no mask, no
dissimulation; they do not give themselves the trouble to disguise a
feeling; they are what they ARE, and it is often horrible! The other
man is for others, for the world, for salons; the court, the
sovereign, the public often see them grand, and noble, and generous,
embroidered with virtues, adorned with fine language, full of
admirable qualities. What a horrible jest it is!--and the world is
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