| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: towards the east, so that at a very seasonable hour a glow of
crimson light came flooding through the window, and bathed the
dingy ceiling and paper-hangings in its own hue. There were
curtains to Phoebe's bed; a dark, antique canopy, and ponderous
festoons of a stuff which had been rich, and even magnificent,
in its time; but which now brooded over the girl like a cloud,
making a night in that one corner, while elsewhere it was
beginning to be day. The morning light, however, soon stole
into the aperture at the foot of the bed, betwixt those faded
curtains. Finding the new guest there,--with a bloom on her
cheeks like the morning's own, and a gentle stir of departing
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: To-night a man who loves me offered me his whole life. I refused
it. It was foolish of me. I will offer him mine now. I will give
him mine. I will go to him! [Puts on cloak and goes to the door,
then turns back. Sits down at table and writes a letter, puts it
into an envelope, and leaves it on table.] Arthur has never
understood me. When he reads this, he will. He may do as he
chooses now with his life. I have done with mine as I think best,
as I think right. It is he who has broken the bond of marriage -
not I. I only break its bondage.
[Exit.]
[PARKER enters L. and crosses towards the ball-room R. Enter MRS.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: hands with Shem. I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced
existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been
before all time, must needs exist after all humane ages are over.
But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the
stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his
ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to
claim for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the
unmistakable print of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple
of Denderah, some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the
granite ceiling a sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in
centaurs, griffins, and dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures
Moby Dick |
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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: that she was unable to receive them. Then, with that frank curiosity
which appears in provincial manners, they inquired what misfortune,
grief, or illness afflicted her. In reply to these questions, an old
housekeeper named Brigitte informed them that her mistress had shut
herself up in her room and would see no one, not even the servants of
the house. The semi-cloistral existence of the inhabitants of a little
town creates so invincible a habit of analyzing and explaining the
actions of their neighbors, that after compassionating Madame de Dey
(without knowing whether she were happy or unhappy), they proceeded to
search for the reasons of this sudden retreat.
"If she were ill," said the first Inquisitive, "she would have sent
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