| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: and it will explain the oath exacted and taken when the colonel and
the lieutenant bade each other farewell.
A young man of charming appearance, named Charles d'Estourny, came to
Havre for the commonplace purpose of being near the sea, and there he
saw Bettina Mignon. A "soi-disant" fashionable Parisian is never
without introductions, and he was invited at the instance of a friend
of the Mignons to a fete given at Ingouville. He fell in love with
Bettina and with her fortune, and in three months he had done the work
of seduction and enticed her away. The father of a family of daughters
should no more allow a young man whom he does not know to enter his
home than he should leave books and papers lying about which he has
Modeste Mignon |
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 Turn of the Screw by Henry James: "Oh, how delicious!" cried one of the women.
He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, he saw
what he spoke of. "For general uncanny ugliness and horror and pain."
"Well then," I said, "just sit right down and begin."
He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it
an instant. Then as he faced us again: "I can't begin.
I shall have to send to town." There was a unanimous groan
at this, and much reproach; after which, in his preoccupied way,
he explained. "The story's written. It's in a locked drawer--
it has not been out for years. I could write to my man and
enclose the key; he could send down the packet as he finds it."
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