| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: time went on his conformity to the church in which he was born grew
more complete, and his views drew nearer the conventional. 'The
longer I live, my dear Louis,' he wrote but a few months before his
death, 'the more convinced I become of a direct care by God - which
is reasonably impossible - but there it is.' And in his last year
he took the communion.
But at the time when I fell under his influence, he stood more
aloof; and this made him the more impressive to a youthful atheist.
He had a keen sense of language and its imperial influence on men;
language contained all the great and sound metaphysics, he was wont
to say; and a word once made and generally understood, he thought 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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: men stood on chairs in the ball-room to see you dance, madame," said
the abbe, turning to his female adversary. "To me, your triumphs are
but of yesterday--"
"The old rogue!" thought Madame Grassins; "can he have guessed my
intentions?"
"It seems that I shall have a good deal of success in Saumur," thought
Charles as he unbuttoned his great-coat, put a hand into his
waistcoat, and cast a glance into the far distance, to imitate the
attitude which Chantrey has given to Lord Byron.
The inattention of Pere Grandet, or, to speak more truly, the
preoccupation of mind into which the reading of the letter had plunged
Eugenie Grandet |
