| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: gives back naught that she has ever received,--the Sea, came wrapped
in her virent mantle; she opened her bosom, she showed her gems, she
brought forth her treasures and offered them; waves of sapphire and of
emerald came at her bidding; her hidden wonders stirred, they rose to
the surface of her breast, they spoke; the rarest pearl of Ocean
spread its iridescent wings and gave voice to its marine melodies,
saying, 'Twin daughter of suffering, we are sisters! await me; let us
go together; all I need is to become a Woman.' The Bird with the wings
of an eagle and the paws of a lion, the head of a woman and the body
of a horse, the Animal, fell down before her and licked her feet, and
promised seven hundred years of plenty to her best-beloved daughter.
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: Tour d'Azyr, his wound notwithstanding, was bending over the girl,
whilst behind him stood M. d'Ormesson and madame's footman.
The Countess looked up and saw him as he was driven past. Her face
lighted; almost it seemed to him she was about to greet him or to
call him, wherefore, to avoid a difficulty, arising out of the
presence there of his late antagonist, he anticipated her by bowing
frigidly - for his mood was frigid, the more frigid by virtue of
what he saw - and then resumed his seat with eyes that looked
deliberately ahead.
Could anything more completely have confirmed him in his conviction
that it was on M. de La Tour d'Azyr's account that Aline had come
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Call of the Wild by Jack London: showed his teeth they got out of his way.
Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near the fire, hind legs
crouched under him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised,
and eyes blinking dreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of
Judge Miller's big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and
of the cement swimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, and
Toots, the Japanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the
red sweater, the death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and
the good things he had eaten or would like to eat. He was not
homesick. The Sunland was very dim and distant, and such memories
had no power over him. Far more potent were the memories of his
|
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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: ventured on a little story about her son,--how left alone for a minute
he had taken the pat of butter in his fingers, run across the room
with it, and put it on the fire--merely for the fun of the thing,
a feeling which she could understand.
"And you had to show the young rascal that these tricks wouldn't do, eh?"
"A child of six? I don't think they matter."
"I'm an old-fashioned father."
"Nonsense, Willoughby; Rachel knows better."
Much as Willoughby would doubtless have liked his daughter
to praise him she did not; her eyes were unreflecting as water,
her fingers still toying with the fossilised fish, her mind absent.
|
