| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: by the man who loves her in one way. You understand me? If she loves
him and is willing to commit a folly, she must be justified by great
and heroic reasons. Forgive me this logic, rare in my sex; but for the
sake of your happiness,--and my own," she added, dropping her head,--
"I will not allow either of us to deceive the other, nor will I permit
you to think that Mademoiselle de Verneuil, angel or devil, maid or
wife, is capable of being seduced by commonplace gallantry."
"Mademoiselle," said the marquis, whose surprise, though he concealed
it, was extreme, and who at once became a man of the great world, "I
entreat you to believe that I take you to be a very noble person, full
of the highest sentiments, or--a charming girl, as you please."
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: eyes streaming with unchecked tears. Again was Emilia, in her
marble paleness, the calm centre of a tragedy she herself had
caused. The wild, ungoverned child was the image of peace; it
was the stolid and prosperous man who was in the storm. It was
not till Hope came that there was any change. Then his
prostrate nature sought hers, as the needle leaps to the iron;
the first touch of her hand, the sight of her kiss upon
Emilia's forehead, made him strong. It was the thorough
subjection of a worldly man to the higher organization of a
noble woman, and thenceforth it never varied. In later years,
after he had foolishly sought, as men will, to win her to a
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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 Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: and anyhow we may say that LOVE-RITES, even in mature
and civilized man, hardly ADMIT of speech. Words only
vulgarize love and blunt its edge.
So Dance to the savage and the early man was not merely
an amusement or a gymnastic exercise (as the books
often try to make out), but it was also a serious
and intimate part of life, an expression of religion
and the relation of man to non-human Powers. Imagine
a young dancer--and the admitted age for ritual dancing
was commonly from about eighteen to thirty--coming
forward on the dancing-ground or platform for the
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: to publish her first book, Deephaven (1877), a collection of
sketches published earlier in the Atlantic Monthly. Through
her friendship with Howells, Jewett became acquainted with Boston's
literary elite, including Annie Fields, with whom she developed one
of the most intimate and lasting relationships of her life.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered
Jewett's finest work, described by Henry James as her "beautiful
little quantum of achievement." Despite James's diminutives, the
novel remains a classic. Because it is loosely structured, many
critics view the book not as a novel, but a series of sketches;
however, its structure is unified through both setting and theme.
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