| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: worship her on your knees; and think you I would submit my idol to the
cold eyes and stupid criticisms of fools? Ah, love is a mystery! its
life is in the depths of the soul; it dies when a man says, even to
his friend, Here is she whom I love."
The old man seemed to renew his youth; his eyes had the brilliancy and
fire of life, his pale cheeks blushed a vivid red, his hands trembled.
Porbus, amazed by the passionate violence with which he uttered these
words, knew not how to answer a feeling so novel and yet so profound.
Was the old man under the thraldom of an artist's fancy? Or did these
ideas flow from the unspeakable fanaticism produced at times in every
mind by the long gestation of a noble work? Was it possible to bargain
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: "That was me!" he added, looking out at us, through the half-opened
door, as we stood waiting in the road.' "And that's what I'd have
done--as sure as potatoes aren't radishes--if she hadn't have
tooken herself off! But I always loves my pay-rints like anything."
"Who are oor pay-rints?" said Bruno.
"Them as pay rint for me, a course!" the Gardener replied.
"You can come in now, if you like."
He flung the door open as he spoke, and we got out, a little dazzled
and stupefied (at least I felt so) at the sudden transition from the
half-darkness of the railway-carriage to the brilliantly-lighted
platform of Elveston Station.
Sylvie and Bruno |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: vivid, can open his ear to more melodious harmonies, can seat him on
clouds of shining constellations and teach him to question them. The
Heart can do still greater things. Man may come into the presence of
one sole being and find in a single word, a single look, an influence
so weighty to bear, of so luminous a light, so penetrating a sound,
that he succumbs and kneels before it. The most real of all splendors
are not in outward things, they are within us. A single secret of
science is a realm of wonders to the man of learning. Do the trumpets
of Power, the jewels of Wealth, the music of Joy, or a vast concourse
of people attend his mental festival? No, he finds his glory in some
dim retreat where, perchance, a pallid suffering man whispers a single
Seraphita |
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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: some obstinate persons, and a few philosophers, to be thus dispelled;
so that all Madame de Dey's usual visitors came eagerly and early that
evening to watch her countenance: some out of true friendship, but
most of them to detect the secret of her seclusion.
They found the countess seated as usual, at the corner of the great
fireplace in her salon, a room almost as unpretentious as the other
salons in Carentan; for, in order not to wound the narrow view of her
guests, she denied herself the luxuries to which she was accustomed.
The floor of her reception room was not even waxed, the walls were
still hung with dingy tapestries; she used the country furniture,
burned tallow candles, and followed the customs of the town,--adopting
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