| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: given a more comprehensive description of this feature of Russian
life in any of his other works. In this story also he has
presented many traits which are common to human nature throughout
the world, and this gives an added interest to the book. The
language is simple and picturesque, and the characters are drawn
with remarkable fidelity to nature. The moral of this tale
points out how the hero Ivan might have avoided the terrible
consequences of a quarrel with his neighbor (which grew out of
nothing) if he had lived in accordance with the scriptural
injunction to forgive his brother's sins and seek not for
revenge.
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose
what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an
unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which
we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our
torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us
little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and
entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great
depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: there were little fields below her of less than
half-a-dozen acres, so numerous that they looked from
this height like the meshes of a net. Here the
landscape was whitey-brown; down there, as in Froom
Valley, it was always green. Yet is was in that vale
that her sorrow had taken shape, and she did not love
it as formerly. Beauty to her, as to all who have
felt, lay not in the thing, but in what the thing
symbolized.
Keeping the Vale on her right she steered steadily
westward; passing above the Hintocks, crossing at
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
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 Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: just left prison, pardoned. The projects which the two men then formed
before a fire of laths, one wrapped in his landlady's counterpane, the
other in his infamy, it is useless to relate. The next day Cerizet,
who had talked with Dutocq in the course of the morning, returned,
bringing trousers, waistcoat, coat, hat, and boots, bought in the
Temple, and he carried off Theodose to dine with himself and Dutocq.
The hungry Provencal ate at Pinson's, rue de l'Ancienne Comedie, half
of a dinner costing forty-seven francs. At dessert, after Theodose had
drunk freely, Cerizet said to him:--
"Will you sign me bills of exchange for fifty thousand francs in your
capacity as a barrister?"
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