| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: a dreadful word, revealed the cause of the agitation spreading on board
the Nautilus. It was not we the crew were looking after!
"The maelstrom! the maelstrom!" Could a more dreadful word in a more
dreadful situation have sounded in our ears! We were then upon
the dangerous coast of Norway. Was the Nautilus being drawn into
this gulf at the moment our boat was going to leave its sides?
We knew that at the tide the pent-up waters between the islands
of Ferroe and Loffoden rush with irresistible violence,
forming a whirlpool from which no vessel ever escapes.
From every point of the horizon enormous waves were meeting,
forming a gulf justly called the "Navel of the Ocean,"
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: plants, two images who would have been missed from the furniture of
the room. But the most aggressive of our schoolfellows would sometimes
torment us, just to show their malignant power, and we responded with
stolid contempt, which brought many a thrashing down on the Poet-and-
Pythagoras.
Lambert's home-sickness lasted for many months. I know no words to
describe the dejection to which he was a prey. Louis has taken the
glory off many a masterpiece for me. We had both played the part of
the "Leper of Aosta," and had both experienced the feelings described
in Monsieur de Maistre's story, before we read them as expressed by
his eloquent pen. A book may, indeed, revive the memories of our
Louis Lambert |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: and Madame d'Espard had a word to say to each other, and she drew
around her d'Arthez, Rastignac, and Blondet, amusing them with one of
those clever paradoxical attacks which Parisian women understand so
thoroughly.
"Well," said the marquise to Diane, "what do you think of him?"
"He is an adorable child, just out of swaddling-clothes! This time,
like all other times, it will only be a triumph without a struggle."
"Well, it is disappointing," said Madame d'Espard. "But we might evade
it."
"How?"
"Let me be your rival."
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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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: asked, "in calling it the worst?"
Marcher thought. "Assuredly--if you mean, as I do, something that
includes all the loss and all the shame that are thinkable."
"It would if it SHOULD happen," said May Bartram. "What we're
speaking of, remember, is only my idea."
"It's your belief," Marcher returned. "That's enough for me. I
feel your beliefs are right. Therefore if, having this one, you
give me no more light on it, you abandon me."
"No, no!" she repeated. "I'm with you--don't you see?--still."
And as to make it more vivid to him she rose from her chair--a
movement she seldom risked in these days--and showed herself, all
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