| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: Saint-Germain, among the Listomeres, the Lenoncourts, and the
Vandenesses, he heard so much gossip, so many facts and falsities,
about Madame Firmiani that he resolved to be presented to her under
the name of de Rouxellay, that of his estate in Touraine. The astute
old gentleman was careful to choose an evening when he knew that
Octave would be engaged in finishing a piece of work which was to pay
him well,--for this so-called lover of Madame Firmiani still went to
her house; a circumstance that seemed difficult to explain. As to
Octave's ruin, that, unfortunately, was no fable, as Monsieur de
Bourbonne had at once discovered.
Monsieur de Rouxellay was not at all like the provincial uncle at the
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: devotion of Giles might suddenly end--might end that very hour.
Men were so strange. The thought took away from her all her
former reticence, and made her action bold. She started from her
seat. If the little breach, quarrel, or whatever it might be
called, of yesterday, was to be healed up it must be done by her
on the instant. She crossed into the orchard, and clambered
through the gap after Giles, just as he was diminishing to a faun-
like figure under the green canopy and over the brown floor.
Grace had been wrong--very far wrong--in assuming that the letter
had no reference to herself because Giles had turned away into the
wood after its perusal. It was, sad to say, because the missive
The Woodlanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: I
Bed in Summer
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
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 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: Queensferry. Smoke went up from both of these, and from other
villages and farms upon all hands. The fields were being reaped;
two ships lay anchored, and boats were coming and going on the
Hope. It was altogether a right pleasant sight to me; and I
could not take my fill of gazing at these comfortable, green,
cultivated hills and the busy people both of the field and sea.
For all that, there was Mr. Rankeillor's house on the south
shore, where I had no doubt wealth awaited me; and here was I
upon the north, clad in poor enough attire of an outlandish
fashion, with three silver shillings left to me of all my
fortune, a price set upon my head, and an outlawed man for my
Kidnapped |
