| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: And here, as you see, I am his wife. There really is something
strong, powerful, bearlike about him, isn't there? Now his face
is turned three-quarters towards us in a bad light, but when he
turns round look at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what do you say to
that forehead? Dymov, we are talking about you!" she called to
her husband. "Come here; hold out your honest hand to Ryabovsky.
. . . That's right, be friends."
Dymov, with a naive and good-natured smile, held out his hand to
Ryabovsky, and said:
"Very glad to meet you. There was a Ryabovsky in my year at the
medical school. Was he a relation of yours?"
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: love increases daily; every moment brings reasons to love or hate each
other more and more. The Abbe Birotteau soon became intolerable to
Mademoiselle Gamard. Eighteen months after she had taken him to board,
and at the moment when the worthy man was mistaking the silence of
hatred for the peacefulness of content, and applauding himself for
having, as he said, "managed matters so well with the old maid," he
was really the object of an underhand persecution and a vengeance
deliberately planned. The four marked circumstances of the locked
door, the forgotten slippers, the lack of fire, and the removal of the
candlestick, were the first signs that revealed to him a terrible
enmity, the final consequences of which were destined not to strike
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act of
inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancy and
fidelity.--I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told
us, and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies."
"Alas! my lady, you are right," replied de Marsay. "For very nearly
fifty years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all
social distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this great
wreck, but the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over their
heads. However terrible the words, they must be spoken: Duchesses are
vanishing, and marquises too! As to the baronesses--I must apologize
to Madame de Nucingen, who will become a countess when her husband is
|
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 Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: receive him.
"I have been over-persuaded to forgive you," he announced
aggressively, seeming thereby to imply that he consented to this
merely so as to put an end to tiresome importunities.
Andre-Louis was not misled. He detected a pretence adopted by the
Seigneur so as to enable him to retreat in good order.
"My blessings on the persuaders, whoever they may have been. You
restore me my happiness, monsieur my godfather."
He took the hand that was proffered and kissed it, yielding to the
impulse of the unfailing habit of his boyish days. It was an act
symbolical of his complete submission, reestablishing between
|
