| 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: are the first and sole thought, to find out those who love to think of
them and for them. If you really love children, the dear little ones,
with open hearts and unerring sense of justice, are marvelously ready
to respond to love. Their love knows passion and jealousy and the most
gracious delicacy of feeling; they find the tenderest words of
expression; they trust you--put an entire belief in you. Perhaps there
are no undutiful children without undutiful mothers, for a child's
affection is always in proportion to the affection that it receives--
in early care, in the first words that it hears, in the response of
the eyes to which a child first looks for love and life. All these
things draw them closer to the mother or drive them apart. God lays
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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 $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: see her when the dearest object of her affections recklessly seeks
every bacchanalian pleasure, contents himself with the last rubbish
of creation. With what solicitude she awaits his return! Sleep fails
to perform its office--she weeps while the nocturnal shades of the
night triumph in the stillness. Bending over some favorite book,
whilst the author throws before her mind the most beautiful imagery,
she startles at every sound. The midnight silence is broken
by the solemn announcement of the return of another morning.
He is still absent; she listens for that voice which has so often
been greeted by the melodies of her own; but, alas! stern silence
is all that she receives for her vigilance.
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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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: motion. But when the mother asked whether her poor lost child
had stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with
weeping eyes (for these water-nymphs had tears to spare for
everybody's grief, would answer "No!" in a murmuring voice,
which was just like the murmur of the stream.
Often, likewise, she encountered fauns, who looked like
sunburnt country people, except that they had hairy ears, and
little horns upon their foreheads, and the hinder legs of
goats, on which they gamboled merrily about the woods and
fields. They were a frolicsome kind of creature but grew as sad
as their cheerful dispositions would allow, when Ceres inquired
Tanglewood Tales |
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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: fashion.
Lord Arthur looked so serious and unhappy over the letter, that the
Duchess went into fits of laughter.
'My dear Arthur,' she cried, 'I shall never show you a young lady's
letter again! But what shall I say about the clock? I think it is
a capital invention, and I should like to have one myself.'
'I don't think much of them,' said Lord Arthur, with a sad smile,
and, after kissing his mother, he left the room.
When he got upstairs, he flung himself on a sofa, and his eyes
filled with tears. He had done his best to commit this murder, but
on both occasions he had failed, and through no fault of his own.
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