| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: Long Island shore. Every old white farmhouse, with its gray-walled
garden, its clumps of lilacs, viburnums, and early roses, offered
us a picture of pastoral simplicity and repose. We passed them,
one by one, in the happiest mood, enjoying the earth around us, the
sky above, and ourselves most of all.
"The scenery, however, gradually became more rough and broken.
Knobs of gray gneiss, crowned by mournful cedars, intrenched upon
the arable land, and the dark-blue gleam of water appeared through
the trees. Our road, which had been approaching the Sound, now
skirted the head of a deep, irregular inlet, beyond which extended
a beautiful promontory, thickly studded with cedars, and with
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: felt it incumbent on her to respect his mood. Her womanly delicacy and
her submissive habits always led her to wait for Balthazar's
confidence; which, indeed, was assured to her by so constant an
affection that she had never had the slightest opening for jealousy.
Though certain of obtaining an answer whenever she should make the
inquiry, she still retained enough of the earlier impressions of her
life to dread a refusal. Besides, the moral malady of her husband had
its phases, and only came by slow degrees to the intolerable point at
which it destroyed the happiness of the family.
However occupied Balthazar Claes might be, he continued for several
months cheerful, affectionate, and ready to talk; the change in his
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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 A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: taps is the soldier's nightly release from duty, and farewell:
plaintive, sweet, pathetic, for the morning is never sure, for him;
always it is possible that he is hearing it for the last time. . .
.
[TAPS]
. . . Then the bands turned their instruments towards Cathy and
burst in with that rollicking frenzy of a tune, "Oh, we'll all get
blind drunk when Johnny comes marching home - yes, we'll all get
blind drunk when Johnny comes marching home!" and followed it
instantly with "Dixie," that antidote for melancholy, merriest and
gladdest of all military music on any side of the ocean - and that
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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 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: She then ran gaily off, rejoicing, as she rambled about, in the
hope of being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already
so much recovered as to intend leaving her room for a couple of
hours that evening.
Chapter 10
When the ladies removed after dinner, Elizabeth ran up to her
sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into
the drawing-room, where she was welcomed by her two friends
with many professions of pleasure; and Elizabeth had never seen
them so agreeable as they were during the hour which passed
before the gentlemen appeared. Their powers of conversation
Pride and Prejudice |
