| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: of play; she was coquettish for her darlings; she wished to be
pleasing in their eyes; for them she would fain be in all things
lovely, a gracious vision, with the charm of some sweet perfume of
which one can never have enough.
She was always dressed in time to hear their lessons, which lasted
from ten till three, with an interval at noon for lunch, the three
taking the meal together in the summer-house. After lunch the children
played for an hour, while she--poor woman and happy mother--lay on a
long sofa in the summer-house, so placed that she could look out over
the soft, ever-changing country of Touraine, a land that you learn to
see afresh in all the thousand chance effects produced by daylight and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: "I did not know you read French," he said, very polite.
"Did you not?" she replied, with a faint, sarcastic smile.
"Rotten swank!" he said, but scarcely loud enough to be heard.
He shut his mouth angrily as he watched her. She seemed
to scorn the work she mechanically produced; yet the hose she
made were as nearly perfect as possible.
"You don't like Spiral work," he said.
"Oh, well, all work is work," she answered, as if she knew
all about it.
He marvelled at her coldness. He had to do everything hotly.
She must be something special.
Sons and Lovers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: advantage over the other it was difficult to decide from the
results obtained. By last accounts, however, it would seem that
the armor-plate would in the end have to give way to the shot;
nevertheless, there were competent judges who had their doubts
on the point.
At the last experiment the cylindro-conical projectiles of
Barbicane stuck like so many pins in the Nicholl plates.
On that day the Philadelphia iron-forger then believed himself
victorious, and could not evince contempt enough for his rival;
but when the other afterward substituted for conical shot simple
600-pound shells, at very moderate velocity, the captain was
From the Earth to the Moon |
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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: neither more nor less than Randolph Peperking's Hartfield - that is
to say, Ralph Peverell's deer-park.
N.B. - This Ralph Randolph, or Ralph Peverell (call him as you
please), had, it seems, a most beautiful lady to his wife, who was
daughter of Ingelrick, one of Edward the Confessor's noblemen. He
had two sons by her - William Peverell, a famed soldier, and lord
or governor of Dover Castle, which he surrendered to William the
Conqueror, after the battle in Sussex, and Pain Peverell, his
youngest, who was lord of Cambridge. When the eldest son delivered
up the castle, the lady, his mother, above named, who was the
celebrated beauty of the age, was it seems there, and the Conqueror
|
