| 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: older, he would have read happy memories blended with thoughts of
repentance, the whole story of a woman's life in that sublime face--
the careless childhood, the loveless marriage, a terrible passion,
flowers springing up in storm and struck down by the thunderbolt into
an abyss from which there is no return.
"Darling mother," Louis said at last, "why do you hide your pain from
me?"
"My boy, we ought to hide our troubles from strangers," she said; "we
should show them a smiling face, never speak of ourselves to them, nor
think about ourselves; and these rules, put in practice in family
life, conduce to its happiness. You will have much to bear one day! Ah
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Along the reedy shore, and circumvent
Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal
For fear of bold Poseidon's ravishment,
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.
On this side and on that a rocky cave,
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,
As though it feared to be too soon forgot
By the green rush, its playfellow, - and yet, it is a spot
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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 Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: tobacco, and then to go on deck again about his business.
Otherwise our hero and the young lady were left to themselves, to
do as they pleased, with no one to interfere with them.
As for her, she at no time showed any great sign of terror or of
fear, only for a little while was singularly numb and quiet, as
though dazed with what had happened to her. Indeed, methinks
that wild beast, her grandfather, had so crushed her spirit by
his tyranny and his violence that nothing that happened to her
might seem sharp and keen, as it does to others of an ordinary
sort.
But this was only at first, for afterward her face began to grow
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: at the lady's artifice and my sister's penetration, and ask myself
if she too had an eye to the squire - but never mind, Halford; she
had not.
Richard Wilson, Jane's younger brother, sat in a corner, apparently
good-tempered, but silent and shy, desirous to escape observation,
but willing enough to listen and observe: and, although somewhat
out of his element, he would have been happy enough in his own
quiet way, if my mother could only have let him alone; but in her
mistaken kindness, she would keep persecuting him with her
attentions - pressing upon him all manner of viands, under the
notion that he was too bashful to help himself, and obliging him to
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
