| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: her manners might be held to confirm those favorable to her. She had
not lived at Saint-Cyr, moreover, for very long before her reserve
excited the curiosity of idle people, who always, and especially in
the country, watch anybody or anything that promises to bring some
interest into their narrow lives.
Mme. Willemsens was rather tall; she was thin and slender, but
delicately shaped. She had pretty feet, more remarkable for the grace
of her instep and ankle than for the more ordinary merit of
slenderness; her gloved hands, too, were shapely. There were flitting
patches of deep red in a pale face, which must have been fresh and
softly colored once. Premature wrinkles had withered the delicately
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: have purified our age; but in spite of THE CENCI the drama is one
of the artistic forms through which the genius of the England of
this century seeks in vain to find outlet and expression. He has
had no worthy imitators.
It is rather, perhaps, to you that we should turn to complete and
perfect this great movement of ours, for there is something
Hellenic in your air and world, something that has a quicker breath
of the joy and power of Elizabeth's England about it than our
ancient civilisation can give us. For you, at least, are young;
'no hungry generations tread you down,' and the past does not weary
you with the intolerable burden of its memories nor mock you with
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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 Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: by my few acquaintance, and forsaken by you!'"
"That's how she went on to me," said Henchard, "acres of
words like that, when what had happened was what I could not
cure."
"Yes," said Farfrae absently, "it is the way wi' women." But
the fact was that he knew very little of the sex; yet
detecting a sort of resemblance in style between the
effusions of the woman he worshipped and those of the
supposed stranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever spoke
thus, whosesoever the personality she assumed.
Henchard unfolded another letter, and read it through
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: One day, as he crossed the Place Saint-Sulpice, Bianchon caught
sight of his master going into the church at about nine in the
morning. Desplein, who at that time never went a step without his
cab, was on foot, and slipped in by the door in the Rue du Petit-
Lion, as if he were stealing into some house of ill fame. The
house surgeon, naturally possessed by curiosity, knowing his
master's opinions, and being himself a rabid follower of Cabanis
(Cabaniste en dyable, with the y, which in Rabelais seems to
convey an intensity of devilry)--Bianchon stole into the church,
and was not a little astonished to see the great Desplein, the
atheist, who had no mercy on the angels--who give no work to the
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