| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: who am watching you, I will come every night under your window.
Let down a string long enough to reach me; it will not make any
noise; you must fasten to the end of it whatever you write to me.
I will tie my letter in the same way. I hear /they/ have taught
you to read and write,--those wicked relations who were to do you
good, and have done you so much harm. You, Pierrette, the daughter
of a colonel who died for France, reduced by those monsters to be
their servant! That is where all your pretty color and health have
gone. My Pierrette, what has become of her? what have they done
with her. I see plainly you are not the same, not happy. Oh!
Pierrette, let us go back to Brittany. I can earn enough now to
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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 Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: own pleasant and inane laugh, and burying his slender, long hands into
the capacious pockets of his overcoat, he said leisurely--a
bloodthirsty young ruffian, Do you want to make a hole in a
law-abiding man?. . .As for me, sir, I never fight duels," he added,
as he placidly sat down and stretched his long, lazy legs out before him.
"Demmed uncomfortable things, duels, ain't they, Tony?"
Now the Vicomte had no doubt vaguely heard that in England the
fashion of duelling amongst gentlemen had been surpressed by the law
with a very stern hand; still to him, a Frenchman, whose notions of
bravery and honour were based upon a code that had centuries of
tradition to back it, the spectacle of a gentleman actually refusing
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: something in the nature of reproach were ex-
pressed in her glance.
"We have not seen each other for a long time,"
I said.
"A long time, and we have both changed in
many ways."
"Consequently you love me no longer?" . . .
"I am married!" . . . she said.
"Again? A few years ago, however, that
reason also existed, but, nevertheless" . . .
She plucked her hand away from mine and her
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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 Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: III
My Kingdom
Down by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,
No higher than my head.
The heather and the gorse about
In summer bloom were coming out,
Some yellow and some red.
I called the little pool a sea;
The little hills were big to me;
For I am very small.
A Child's Garden of Verses |
