| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: Mentor, a male form; but her speech and thought is essentially
masculine, and not feminine. Antiope is a mere lay-figure,
introduced at the end of the book because Telemachus must needs be
allowed to have hope of marrying someone or other. Venus plays but
the same part as she does in the Tannenhauser legends of the Middle
Age. Her hatred against Telemachus is an integral element of the
plot. She, with the other women or nymphs of the romance, in spite
of all Fenelon's mercy and courtesy towards human frailties, really
rise no higher than the witches of the Malleus Maleficanum. Woman--
as the old monk held who derived femina from fe, faith, and minus,
less, because women have less faith than men--is, in "Telemaque,"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: deliberate pace of his thoughts. His moral landmarks were going one by
one, consumed in the fire of his experience, buried in hot mud, in
ashes. He was cooling--on the surface; but there was enough heat left
somewhere to make him slap the brushes on the table, and turning away,
say in a fierce whisper: "I wish him joy . . . Damn the woman."
He felt himself utterly corrupted by her wickedness, and the most
significant symptom of his moral downfall was the bitter, acrid
satisfaction with which he recognized it. He, deliberately, swore in
his thoughts; he meditated sneers; he shaped in profound silence words
of cynical unbelief, and his most cherished convictions stood revealed
finally as the narrow prejudices of fools. A crowd of shapeless,
Tales of Unrest |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: a scruple, and have laughed at the Huguenots. Terrified by her
coldness, and her little affection for her children, whom she
abandoned to me without regret, I determined to leave her the command
of her fortune, after paying our common debts. It was no business of
hers, as she told me, to pay for my follies. As I then had not enough
to live on and pay for my sons' education, I determined to educate
them myself, to make them gentlemen and men of feeling. By investing
my money in the funds I have been enabled to pay off my obligation
sooner than I had dared to hope, for I took advantage of the
opportunities afforded by the improvement in prices. If I had kept
four thousand francs a year for my boys and myself, I could only have
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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 Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: words, he laid his weary head on the bosom he had filled with sorrow,
and the fragrant leaves were folded carefully about him.
But he could find no rest. The rose strove to comfort him; but when
she fancied he was sleeping, thoughts of her lost bud stole in, and
the little heart beat so sadly where he lay, that no sleep came; while
the bitter tears he had caused to flow fell more coldly on him than
the rain without. Then he heard the other flowers whispering among
themselves of his cruelty, and the sorrow he had brought to their
happy home; and many wondered how the rose, who had suffered most,
could yet forgive and shelter him.
"Never could I forgive one who had robbed me of my children. I could
Flower Fables |
