| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: With objects manifold; each several stone,
With wit well blazon'd, smil'd, or made some moan.
'Lo! all these trophies of affections hot,
Of pensiv'd and subdued desires the tender,
Nature hath charg'd me that I hoard them not,
But yield them up where I myself must render,
That is, to you, my origin and ender:
For these, of force, must your oblations be,
Since I their altar, you enpatron me.
'O then advance of yours that phraseless hand,
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: footing with families who were less rich. When she went to her
country-place at Prebaudet, she drove there in an old wicker carriole,
hung on two straps of white leather, drawn by a wheezy mare, and
scarcely protected by two leather curtains rusty with age. This
carriole, known to all the town, was cared for by Jacquelin as though
it were the finest coupe in all Paris. Mademoiselle valued it; she had
used it for twelve years,--a fact to which she called attention with
the triumphant joy of happy avarice. Most of the inhabitants of the
town were grateful to Mademoiselle Cormon for not humiliating them by
the luxury she could have displayed; we may even believe that had she
imported a caleche from Paris they would have gossiped more about that
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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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: hand on the table at which they had been sitting, "this base
churl hath fathomed the very depth of my fear, and I have been
unable to disguise it from him. She loves me not--I would it
were as true that I loved not her! Idiot that I was, to move her
in my own behalf, when wisdom bade me be a true broker to my
lord! And this fatal error has placed me more at her discretion
than a wise man would willingly be at that of the best piece of
painted Eve's flesh of them all. Since the hour that my policy
made so perilous a slip, I cannot look at her without fear, and
hate, and fondness, so strangely mingled, that I know not
whether, were it at my choice, I would rather possess or ruin
Kenilworth |
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 The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: destruction around it. The foot seemed to them like the torso of some
Grecian Venus, brought to light amid the ruins of a burned city.
"There is a woman beneath it all!" cried Porbus, calling Poussin's
attention to the layers of color which the old painter had
successively laid on, believing that he thus brought his work to
perfection. The two men turned towards him with one accord, beginning
to comprehend, though vaguely, the ecstasy in which he lived.
"He means it in good faith," said Porbus.
"Yes, my friend," answered the old man, rousing from his abstraction,
"we need faith; faith in art. We must live with our work for years
before we can produce a creation like that. Some of these shadows have
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