| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: now he has got safe out of his sooty old shell.
But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow
of the Linnaean Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was
drowned. When they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and
found no jewels there, nor money - nothing but three marbles, and a
brass button with a string to it - then Sir John did something as
like crying as ever he did in his life, and blamed himself more
bitterly than he need have done. So he cried, and the groom-boy
cried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and the little
girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the old nurse cried (for
it was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for though people
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: To the pleasant Land of Play;
To the fairy land afar
Where the Little People are;
Where the clover-tops are trees,
And the rain-pools are the seas,
And the leaves, like little ships,
Sail about on tiny trips;
And above the Daisy tree
Through the grasses,
High o'erhead the Bumble Bee
Hums and passes.
A Child's Garden of Verses |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: consoled him, though it could not smother the memories of so many
tender hours spent with Adelaide.
One evening, as he left his studio, he saw the door of the
ladies' rooms half open. Somebody was standing in the recess of
the window, and the position of the door and the staircase made
it impossible that the painter should pass without seeing
Adelaide. He bowed coldly, with a glance of supreme indifference;
but judging of the girl's suffering by his own, he felt an inward
shudder as he reflected on the bitterness which that look and
that coldness must produce in a loving heart. To crown the most
delightful feast which ever brought joy to two pure souls, by
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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 The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: misunderstood; soon, tired of giving without receiving, they remain at
home, and leave fools to reign over their territory. This hollow life,
this perpetual expectation of a pleasure which never comes, this
permanent /ennui/ and emptiness of soul, heart, and mind, the
lassitude of the upper Parisian world, is reproduced on its features,
and stamps its parchment faces, its premature wrinkles, that
physiognomy of the wealthy upon which impotence has set its grimace,
in which gold is mirrored, and whence intelligence has fled.
Such a view of moral Paris proves that physical Paris could not be
other than it is. This coroneted town is like a queen, who, being
always with child, has desires of irresistible fury. Paris is the
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
