| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: stockings, gave Madame Moreau all the appearance of an elegant
Parisian. She wore, also, a superb bonnet of Leghorn straw, trimmed
with a bunch of moss roses from Nattier's, beneath the spreading sides
of which rippled the curls of her beautiful blond hair.
After ordering a very choice dinner and reviewing the condition of her
rooms, she walked about the grounds, so as to be seen standing near a
flower-bed in the court-yard of the chateau, like the mistress of the
house, on the arrival of the coach from Paris. She held above her head
a charming rose-colored parasol lined with white silk and fringed.
Seeing that Pierrotin merely left Mistigris's queer packages with the
concierge, having, apparently, brought no passengers, Estelle retired
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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 Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse
of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.
This climax of the series had been reached to-night on
the aforesaid moor, and for the first time in the season
its irregularities were forms without features; suggestive
of anything, proclaiming nothing, and without more
character than that of being the limit of something
else -- the lowest layer of a firmament of snow. From
this chaotic skyful of crowding flakes the mead and
moor momentarily received additional clothing, only
to appear momentarily more naked thereby. The vast
Far From the Madding Crowd |
