| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: during the interview. Indeed, if he had, my bonnet would have kept him
from seeing me.
MAID. But what do you hope from keeping him in his mistake?
MISS HARDCASTLE. In the first place I shall be seen, and that is no
small advantage to a girl who brings her face to market. Then I shall
perhaps make an acquaintance, and that's no small victory gained over
one who never addresses any but the wildest of her sex. But my chief
aim is, to take my gentleman off his guard, and, like an invisible
champion of romance, examine the giant's force before I offer to
combat.
MAID. But you are sure you can act your part, and disguise your voice
She Stoops to Conquer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: of you, never." At this Betsy's tail dropped between her legs, for she was a
coward at heart, but Doctor held his ground, his tail standing on end, as his
hair should have done, and his eyes all the while fairly devouring the little
rabbit. "And the worst of it," continued Tattine, "is that no matter how sorry
you may feel" (Betsy was the only one who showed any signs of sorrow, and she
was more scared than sorry), "no matter how sorry you may feel, that will not
mend things. You do not know where this baby lived, and who are its father and
mother, and like as not it is too young to live at all away from them and will
die," and Tattine raised one plump little hand and gave Doctor a slap that at
least made him "turn tail," and slink rather doggedly away to his own
particular hole under the laundry steps. And now it was time to find Mamma--
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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 The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: ferocious, which the imagination of poets and painters had not yet
conceived. In effect, no /rendezvous/ had ever irritated his senses
more, revealed more audacious pleasures, or better aroused love from
its centre to shed itself round him like an atmosphere. There was
something sombre, mysterious, sweet, tender, constrained, and
expansive, an intermingling of the awful and the celestial, of
paradise and hell, which made De Marsay like a drunken man.
He was no longer himself, and he was, withal, great enough to be able
to resist the intoxication of pleasure.
In order to render his conduct intelligible in the catastrophe of this
story, it is needful to explain how his soul had broadened at an age
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
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: all stupefied at the blindness he had cherished. The fate he had
been marked for he had met with a vengeance--he had emptied the cup
to the lees; he had been the man of his time, THE man, to whom
nothing on earth was to have happened. That was the rare stroke--
that was his visitation. So he saw it, as we say, in pale horror,
while the pieces fitted and fitted. So SHE had seen it while he
didn't, and so she served at this hour to drive the truth home. It
was the truth, vivid and monstrous, that all the while he had
waited the wait was itself his portion. This the companion of his
vigil had at a given moment made out, and she had then offered him
the chance to baffle his doom. One's doom, however, was never
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