| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: The clever woman believed she could play her own game with this
political roue; and Monsieur des Lupeaulx was partly the cause of the
unusual expenditures which now began and were continued in the
Rabourdin household.
The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for several
houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are skilfully
laid out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well arranged,--a
domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of private
lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from the
courtyard, led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked on the
street. To the right of the salon were Rabourdin's study and bedroom,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: of valour which the generals wanted to confer on me partly on account of my
rank, and I told them so, (this, again, Socrates will not impeach or deny),
but he was more eager than the generals that I and not he should have the
prize. There was another occasion on which his behaviour was very
remarkable--in the flight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he
served among the heavy-armed,--I had a better opportunity of seeing him
than at Potidaea, for I was myself on horseback, and therefore
comparatively out of danger. He and Laches were retreating, for the troops
were in flight, and I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and
promised to remain with them; and there you might see him, Aristophanes, as
you describe (Aristoph. Clouds), just as he is in the streets of Athens,
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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 Persuasion by Jane Austen: he might have done, was considered with sensations unqualified, unperplexed.
Pity for him was all over. But this was the only point of relief.
In every other respect, in looking around her, or penetrating forward,
she saw more to distrust and to apprehend. She was concerned
for the disappointment and pain Lady Russell would be feeling;
for the mortifications which must be hanging over her father and sister,
and had all the distress of foreseeing many evils, without knowing
how to avert any one of them. She was most thankful for her own
knowledge of him. She had never considered herself as entitled to reward
for not slighting an old friend like Mrs Smith, but here was
a reward indeed springing from it! Mrs Smith had been able to tell her
Persuasion |
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 A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: Knight's lips. Such solitary walks and scenes as that witnessed
by Smith in the summer-house were frequent, but he courted her so
intangibly that to any but such a delicate perception as Elfride's
it would have appeared no courtship at all. The time now really
began to be sweet with her. She dismissed the sense of sin in her
past actions, and was automatic in the intoxication of the moment.
The fact that Knight made no actual declaration was no drawback.
Knowing since the betrayal of his sentiments that love for her
really existed, she preferred it for the present in its form of
essence, and was willing to avoid for awhile the grosser medium of
words. Their feelings having been forced to a rather premature
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
