| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and identity,
he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation--hair, flesh,
bones, blood, and the whole body are always changing. Which is true not
only of the body, but also of the soul, whose habits, tempers, opinions,
desires, pleasures, pains, fears, never remain the same in any one of us,
but are always coming and going; and equally true of knowledge, and what is
still more surprising to us mortals, not only do the sciences in general
spring up and decay, so that in respect of them we are never the same; but
each of them individually experiences a like change. For what is implied
in the word "recollection," but the departure of knowledge, which is ever
being forgotten, and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: Porphyri deposited the animal upon the floor; whereupon it proceeded
to act after the manner of dogs.
"THERE'S a puppy for you!" cried Nozdrev, catching hold of it by the
back, and lifting it up. The puppy uttered a piteous yelp.
"I can see that you haven't done what I told you to do," he continued
to Porphyri after an inspection of the animal's belly. "You have quite
forgotten to brush him."
"I DID brush him," protested Porphyri.
"Then where did these fleas come from?"
"I cannot think. Perhaps they have leapt into his coat out of the
britchka."
Dead Souls |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: really sombre, though tinted by the dreamer, and beautiful beneath its
scanty vegetation, the warm chamomile, the Venus' tresses with their
velvet leaves. Oh, lingering festival; oh, glorious decorations; oh,
happy exaltation of human forces! Once already the lake of Brienne had
spoken to me thus. The rock of Croisic may be perhaps the last of
these my joys. If so, what will become of Pauline?
"Have you had a good catch to-day, my man?" I said to the fisherman.
"Yes, monsieur," he replied, stopping and turning toward us the
swarthy face of those who spend whole days exposed to the reflection
of the sun upon the water.
That face was an emblem of long resignation, of the patience of a
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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 Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: persons, into a stout barrel, always buttoned into a green coat with
square tails, which no man could remember to have ever seen new. His
hair, well brushed and powdered, was tied in a rat's tail that lay
between the collar of his coat and that of his waistcoat, which was
white, with a pattern of flowers. With his round head, his face the
color of a vine-leaf, his blue eyes, a trumpet nose, a thick-lipped
mouth, and a double-chin, the dear old fellow excited, whenever he
appeared among strangers who did not know him, that satirical laugh
which Frenchmen so generously bestow on the ludicrous creations Dame
Nature occasionally allows herself, which Art delights in exaggerating
under the name of caricatures.
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