| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: these generations? Why, marrying the likes of themselves,
marrying the cousins their family always expects them to marry."
"Oh," cried Scarlett, fresh pain striking her as Gerald's words
brought home the terrible inevitability of the truth.
Gerald looked at her bowed head and shuffled his feet uneasily.
"It's not crying you are?" he questioned, fumbling clumsily at her
chin, trying to turn her face upward, his own face furrowed with
pity.
"No," she cried vehemently, jerking away.
"It's lying you are, and I'm proud of it. I'm glad there's pride
in you, Puss. And I want to see pride in you tomorrow at the
Gone With the Wind |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: interpret as we please the strong, harsh tones of a "burgundian."
Here I must pause to put before all ignorant persons an explanation of
that word, derived from a very distinguished etymologist who wishes
his name kept secret.
"Burgundian" is the name given, since the reign of Charles VI., to
those noisy detonations, the result of which is to fling upon the
carpet or the clothes a little coal or ember, the trifling nucleus of
a conflagration. Heat or fire releases, they say, a bubble of air left
in the heart of the wood by a gnawing worm. "Inde amor, inde
burgundus." We tremble when we see the structure we had so carefully
erected between the logs rolling down like an avalanche. Oh! to build
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: Derville did not understand the signs which Mme. de Grandlieu made to
him.
"I confess," he said, "that I had no inclination to shed tears over
the lot of this unhappy creature, so brilliant in society, so
repulsive to eyes that could read her heart; I shuddered rather at the
sight of her murderer, a young angel with such a clear brow, such red
lips and white teeth, such a winning smile. There they stood before
their judge, he scrutinizing them much as some fifteenth-century
Dominican inquisitor might have peered into the dungeons of the Holy
Office while the torture was administered to two Moors.
"The Countess spoke tremulously. 'Sir,' she said, 'is there any way of
Gobseck |
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 Statesman by Plato: excellent jest which I spy in the two remaining species. Men and birds are
both bipeds, and human beings are running a race with the airiest and
freest of creation, in which they are far behind their competitors;--this
is a great joke, and there is a still better in the juxtaposition of the
bird-taker and the king, who may be seen scampering after them. For, as we
remarked in discussing the Sophist, the dialectical method is no respecter
of persons. But we might have proceeded, as I was saying, by another and a
shorter road. In that case we should have begun by dividing land animals
into bipeds and quadrupeds, and bipeds into winged and wingless; we should
than have taken the Statesman and set him over the 'bipes implume,' and put
the reins of government into his hands.
Statesman |
