| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: For the bright sun's most transient gleams
That cheered me through the day:
But, as above that mist's control
She rose, and brighter shone,
I felt her light upon my soul;
But now--that light is gone!
Thick vapours snatched her from my sight,
And I was darkling left,
All in the cold and gloomy night,
Of light and hope bereft:
Until, methought, a little star
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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 Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: Porbus fetched his palette and brushes. The little old man turned up
his cuffs with convulsive haste, slipped his thumb through the palette
charged with prismatic colors, and snatched, rather than took, the
handful of brushes which Porbus held out to him. As he did so his
beard, cut to a point, seemed to quiver with the eagerness of an
incontinent fancy; and while he filled his brush he muttered between
his teeth:--
"Colors fit to fling out of the window with the man who ground them,--
crude, false, revolting! who can paint with them?"
Then he dipped the point of his brush with feverish haste into the
various tints, running through the whole scale with more rapidity than
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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 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: "I just will, though, for it's capital, so shady, light, and big.
It will make fun, and I don't mind being a guy if I'm comfortable."
With that Jo marched straight away and the rest followed,
a bright little band of sisters, all looking their best in summer
suits, with happy faces under the jaunty hatbrims.
Laurie ran to meet and present them to his friends in the
most cordial manner. The lawn was the reception room, and for
several minutes a lively scene was enacted there. Meg was
grateful to see that Miss Kate, though twenty, was dressed with
a simplicity which American girls would do well to imitate, and
who was much flattered by Mr. Ned's assurances that he came
Little Women |
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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: the activity of our agents, who go about among those who are in
arrears and worry them with stories of horrible incendiaries until
they are driven to sign the new policies. Thus you see that eloquence,
the labial flux, is nine tenths of the ways and means of our
business."
To talk, to make people listen to you,--that is seduction in itself. A
nation that has two Chambers, a woman who lends both ears, are soon
lost. Eve and her serpent are the everlasting myth of an hourly fact
which began, and may end, with the world itself.
"A conversation of two hours ought to capture your man," said a
retired lawyer.
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