| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: "But, monsieur, I have already refused one partner--a military
man----"
"Was it that tall cavalry colonel whom you see over there?"
"Precisely so."
"Oh! he is a friend of mine; feel no alarm. Will you grant me the
favor I dare hope for?"
"Yes, monsieur."
Her tone betrayed an emotion so new and so deep that the lawyer's
world-worn soul was touched. He was overcome by shyness like a
schoolboy's, lost his confidence, and his southern brain caught fire;
he tried to talk, but his phrases struck him as graceless in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: very time, by speaking the disinterestedness and delicacy
of her character (qualities which he believed most rare
indeed), was of a sort to heighten all his wishes,
and confirm all his resolutions. He knew not that he had a
pre-engaged heart to attack. Of _that_ he had no suspicion.
He considered her rather as one who had never thought
on the subject enough to be in danger; who had been
guarded by youth, a youth of mind as lovely as of person;
whose modesty had prevented her from understanding
his attentions, and who was still overpowered by the
suddenness of addresses so wholly unexpected, and the novelty
Mansfield Park |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: night his ghost rises and stands shaking the phantom of Inkosi-kaas
at phantom foes. Certainly they fear during the dark hours to
pass the place where the hero is buried.
Oddly enough, too, a new legend or prophecy has arisen in the
land in that unaccountable way in which such things to arise
among barbarous and semi-civilized people, blowing, like the
wind, no man knows whence. According to this saying, so long
as the old Zulu sits there, looking down the stairway he defended
when alive, so long will the New House of the Stairway, springing
from the union of the Englishman and Nyleptha, endure and flourish;
but when he is taken from thence, or when, ages after, his bones
Allan Quatermain |
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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: "So, we shall have Paquita!" said Laurent, rubbing his hands.
"Rascal!" answered Henri, "I shall condemn you to the Concha, if you
carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has
become mine. . . . Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out."
Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say
it to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to
desire. And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who
should have known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is
the intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of
the soul, armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two
real powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
