| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: "Now we can pull down all the hovels of the old village," Benassis
remarked to his deputy. "When the space on which the houses stand has
been grubbed up, it will mean at least another acre of meadow land for
us; and furthermore, there will be a clear saving to the Commune of
the hundred francs that it used to cost to keep Chautard the cretin."
"For the next three years we ought to lay out the hundred francs in
making a single-span bridge to carry the lower road over the main
stream," said M. Cambon. "The townsfolk and the people down the valley
have fallen into the way of taking a short cut across that patch of
land of Jean Francois Pastoureau's; before they have done they will
cut it up in a way that will do a lot of harm to that poor fellow."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: the scandalous tale that supplied the details, on the strength of
which she analysed the love that she had never known, and marked
the subtle distinctions of modern passion, not with comment on
the part of complacent hypocrites. For women know how to say
everything among themselves, and more of them are ruined by each
other than corrupted by men.
There came a moment when she discerned that not until a woman is
loved will the world fully recognise her beauty and her wit.
What does a husband prove? Simply that a girl or woman was
endowed with wealth, or well brought up; that her mother managed
cleverly that in some way she satisfied a man's ambitions. A
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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 Anthem by Ayn Rand: our food; we find water and fruit in the
forest. At night, we choose a clearing, and
we build a ring of fires around it. We sleep
in the midst of that ring, and the beasts
dare not attack us. We can see their eyes,
green and yellow as coals, watching us from
the tree branches beyond. The fires smoulder
as a crown of jewels around us, and smoke
stands still in the air, in columns made blue
by the moonlight. We sleep together in the
midst of the ring, the arms of the Golden
Anthem |
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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table
of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes
or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot.
Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles
of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the
churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for
them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees;
reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones;
or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the
adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung
sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
