| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: project at one time existing of a marriage between Aline and M. de
La Tour d'Azyr. It was a matter that Aline - naturally enough in
the state of her feelings - had never mentioned, nor had M. de
Kercadiou ever alluded to it since his coming to Meudon, by when he
had perceived how unlikely it was ever to be realized.
M. de La Tour d'Azyr's concern for Aline on that morning of the
duel when he had found her baif-swooning in Mme. de Plougastel's
carriage had been of a circumspection that betrayed nothing of his
real interest in her, and therefore had appeared no more than
natural in one who must account himself the cause of her distress.
Similarly Mme. de Plougastel had never realized nor did she realize
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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 Underground City by Jules Verne: carpenters, outside and inside laborers, women, children, and old men,
all were collected in the great yard of the Dochart pit, formerly heaped
with coal from the mine.
Many of these families had existed for generations in the mine
of old Aberfoyle; they were now driven to seek the means
of subsistence elsewhere, and they waited sadly to bid farewell
to the engineer.
James Starr stood upright, at the door of the vast shed in which he had
for so many years superintended the powerful machines of the shaft.
Simon Ford, the foreman of the Dochart pit, then fifty-five years of age,
and other managers and overseers, surrounded him. James Starr took
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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 The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: In short, your good points will become your faults, your faults
will be vices, and your virtues crime.
"If you save a man, you will be said to have killed him; if he
reappears on the scene, it will be positive that you have secured
the present at the cost of the future. If he is not dead, he will
die. Stumble, and you fall! Invent anything of any kind and claim
your rights, you will be crotchety, cunning, ill-disposed to
rising younger men.
"So, you see, my dear fellow, if I do not believe in God, I
believe still less in man. But do not you know in me another
Desplein, altogether different from the Desplein whom every one
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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 Koran: Verily, this Koran guides to the straightest path, and gives the
glad tidings to the believers who do aright that for them is a great
hire; and that for those who believe not in the hereafter, we have
prepared a mighty woe.
Man prays for evil as he prays for good; and man was ever hasty.
We made the night and the day two signs; and we blot out the sign of
the night and make the sign of the day visible, that ye may seek after
plenty from your Lord, and that ye may number the years and the
reckoning; and we have detailed everything in detail.
And every man's augury have we fastened on his neck; and we will
bring forth for him on the resurrection day a book offered to him wide
The Koran |
