| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: her mother's foresight, and, on examining the gifts, she found a
purse, in which the baroness had put the money belonging to her
daughter, adding to it the amount of her own savings. The purse was
accompanied by a letter, in which the mother implored the daughter to
forego the fatal marriage if it were still possible to do so. It had
cost her, she said, untold difficulty to send these few things to her
daughter; she entreated her not to think her hard if, henceforth, she
were forced to abandon her to want; she feared she could never again
assist her; but she blessed her and prayed for her happiness in this
fatal marriage, if, indeed, she persisted in making it, assuring her
that she should never cease to think of her darling child. Here the
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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 Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: Now, without exaggerating the virtues of these gentlemen, it will
be conceded by everybody except perhaps those veteran German
Social-Democrats who have made a cult of obsolescence under the
name of Marxism, that the modern entrepreneur is not to be
displaced and dismissed so lightly as Alberic is dismissed in The
Ring. They are really the masters of the whole situation. Wotan
is hardly less dependent on them than Fafnir; the War-Lord visits
their work, acclaims them in stirring speeches, and casts down
their enemies; whilst Loki makes commercial treaties for them and
subjects all his diplomacy to their approval.
The end cannot come until Siegfried learns A1beric's trade and
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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 Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: the path, and got to the little station where the train stopped
for three minutes, not before, as she had hoped, but after the
second bell had been rung. Hurrying up the platform, Katusha saw
him at once at the windows of a first-class carriage. Two
officers sat opposite each other on the velvet-covered seats,
playing cards. This carriage was very brightly lit up; on the
little table between the seats stood two thick, dripping candles.
He sat in his closefitting breeches on the arm of the seat,
leaning against the back, and laughed. As soon as she recognised
him she knocked at the carriage window with her benumbed hand,
but at that moment the last bell rang, and the train first gave a
Resurrection |
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 Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: apprehend mischief from those understandings I have been able to
provoke: for anger and fury, though they add strength to the
sinews of the body, yet are found to relax those of the mind, and
to render all its efforts feeble and impotent.
There is a brain that will endure but one scumming; let the owner
gather it with discretion, and manage his little stock with
husbandry; but, of all things, let him beware of bringing it under
the lash of his betters, because that will make it all bubble up
into impertinence, and he will find no new supply. Wit without
knowledge being a sort of cream, which gathers in a night to the
top, and by a skilful hand may be soon whipped into froth; but once
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