| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: of sheet iron, with a hood, which rose above a neighboring roof.
Cosette joined in his laughter, all her lugubrious suppositions
were allayed, and the next morning, as she was at breakfast
with her father, she made merry over the sinister garden haunted
by the shadows of iron chimney-pots.
Jean Valjean became quite tranquil once more; as for Cosette,
she did not pay much attention to the question whether the chimney-pot
was really in the direction of the shadow which she had seen,
or thought she had seen, and whether the moon had been in the same
spot in the sky.
She did not question herself as to the peculiarity of a chimney-pot
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: now drag the pail home from the fountain. Be a good boy, Tukey, and run across
and help the old woman, won't you?"
So Tuk ran over quickly and helped her; but when he came back again into the
room it was quite dark, and as to a light, there was no thought of such a
thing. He was now to go to bed; that was an old turn-up bedstead; in it he lay
and thought about his geography lesson, and of Zealand, and of all that his
master had told him. He ought, to be sure, to have read over his lesson again,
but that, you know, he could not do. He therefore put his geography-book under
his pillow, because he had heard that was a very good thing to do when one
wants to learn one's lesson; but one cannot, however, rely upon it entirely.
Well, there he lay, and thought and thought, and all at once it was just as if
Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: to see "King Lear" played in German. It was a mistake.
We sat in our seats three whole hours and never understood
anything but the thunder and lightning; and even that
was reversed to suit German ideas, for the thunder came
first and the lightning followed after.
The behavior of the audience was perfect. There were
no rustlings, or whisperings, or other little disturbances;
each act was listened to in silence, and the applauding
was done after the curtain was down. The doors opened at
half past four, the play began promptly at half past five,
and within two minutes afterward all who were coming were
|
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 Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: will bear them anew day by day!" Then conceive the bitterness of
finding her greatest obstacle in the heart and hand from which a wife
should draw her greatest succor! She saw the untold disaster that
threatened him. As each difficulty was conquered, new deserts opened
before her, until the day when she thoroughly understood her husband's
condition, the constitution of her children, and the character of the
neighborhood in which she lived; a day when (like the child taken by
Napoleon from a tender home) she taught her feet to trample through
mud and snow, she trained her nerves to bullets and all her being to
the passive obedience of a soldier.
These things, of which I here make a summary, she told me in all their
The Lily of the Valley |
