| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: A woman, who upon her shoulders bore
Clerk Eginhard to his own private door,
And then returned in haste, but still essayed
To tread the footprints she herself had made;
And as she passed across the lighted space,
The Emperor saw his daughter Emma's face!
He started not; he did not speak or moan,
But seemed as one who hath been turned to stone;
And stood there like a statue, nor awoke
Out of his trance of pain, till morning broke,
Till the stars faded, and the moon went down,
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: came into them whenever there was a question of material values.
"What, Streffy? Caught you at it, eh? Upon my soul-spoiling
the brat like that! You'd no business to, my dear chap-a
lovely baroque pearl--" he protested, with the half-apologetic
tone of the rich man embarrassed by too costly a gift from an
impecunious friend.
"Oh, hadn't I? Why? Because it's too good for Clarissa, or too
expensive for me? Of course you daren't imply the first; and as
for me--I've had a windfall, and am blowing it in on the
ladies."
Strefford, Lansing had noticed, always used American slang when
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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 The Talisman by Walter Scott: Master.
"Well," answered Conrade, "let me but first try to break peace
between Austria and England."
They parted. Conrade remained standing still upon the spot, and
watching the flowing white cloak of the Templar as he stalked
slowly away, and gradually disappeared amid the fast-sinking
darkness of the Oriental night. Proud, ambitious, unscrupulous,
and politic, the Marquis of Montserrat was yet not cruel by
nature. He was a voluptuary and an epicurean, and, like many who
profess this character, was averse, even upon selfish motives,
from inflicting pain or witnessing acts of cruelty; and he
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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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: is why she passes nearly all her time alone in the chateau. The events
of her life are unknown; she is seldom seen; her days are spent in the
state of mystical contemplation which was, so Catholic writers tell
us, habitual with the early Christian solitaries, in whom the oral
tradition of Christ's own words still remained. Her mind, her soul,
her body, all within her is virgin as the snow on those mountains. At
ten years of age she was just what you see her now. When she was nine
her father and mother expired together, without pain or visible
malady, after naming the day and hour at which they would cease to be.
Standing at their feet she looked at them with a calm eye, not showing
either sadness, or grief, or joy, or curiosity. When we approached to
Seraphita |
