| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: Angelique, carefully watched by him, seemed the gentlest of creatures,
and he even caught himself feeling grateful to Madame Bontems, who, by
implanting so deeply the principles of religion, had in some degree
inured her to meet the troubles of life.
On the day named for signing the inevitable contract, Madame Bontems
made her son-in-law pledge himself solemnly to respect her daughter's
religious practices, to allow her entire liberty of conscience, to
permit her to go to communion, to church, to confession as often as
she pleased, and never to control her choice of priestly advisers. At
this critical moment Angelique looked at her future husband with such
pure and innocent eyes, that Granville did not hesitate to give his
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: to resist the intoxication of pleasure.
In order to render his conduct intelligible in the catastrophe of this
story, it is needful to explain how his soul had broadened at an age
when young men generally belittle themselves in their relations with
women, or in too much occupation with them. Its growth was due to a
concurrence of secret circumstances, which invested him with a vast
and unsuspected power.
This young man held in his hand a sceptre more powerful than that of
modern kings, almost all of whom are curbed in their least wishes by
the laws. De Marsay exercised the autocratic power of an Oriental
despot. But this power, so stupidly put into execution in Asia by
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: The thing that stops them, it must be said again, is their desire
to exercise authority over the artist and over works of art. To
certain theatres, such as the Lyceum and the Haymarket, the public
seem to come in a proper mood. In both of these theatres there
have been individual artists, who have succeeded in creating in
their audiences - and every theatre in London has its own audience
- the temperament to which Art appeals. And what is that
temperament? It is the temperament of receptivity. That is all.
If a man approaches a work of art with any desire to exercise
authority over it and the artist, he approaches it in such a spirit
that he cannot receive any artistic impression from it at all. The
|
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 Timaeus by Plato: principle of the best to have the command in all of them. But the gods,
foreknowing that the palpitation of the heart in the expectation of danger
and the swelling and excitement of passion was caused by fire, formed and
implanted as a supporter to the heart the lung, which was, in the first
place, soft and bloodless, and also had within hollows like the pores of a
sponge, in order that by receiving the breath and the drink, it might give
coolness and the power of respiration and alleviate the heat. Wherefore
they cut the air-channels leading to the lung, and placed the lung about
the heart as a soft spring, that, when passion was rife within, the heart,
beating against a yielding body, might be cooled and suffer less, and might
thus become more ready to join with passion in the service of reason.
|
