| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: treachery, knavery, and black intrigues of a single house, that of the
Medici. From this sketch, we may judge of the other princes of Italy
and Europe. All the envoys of Cosmos I. to the court of France had, in
their secret instructions, an order to poison Strozzi, Catherine's
relation, when he arrived. Charles V. had already assassinated three
of the ambassadors of Francois I.
It was early in the month of October, 1533, that the /Duca della citta
di Penna/ started from Florence for Livorno, accompanied by the sole
heiress of Lorenzo II., namely, Catherine de' Medici. The duke and the
Princess of Florence, for that was the title by which the young girl,
then fourteen years of age, was known, left the city surrounded by a
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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 Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: claw of a hand.
"Come along, Amelia Wheeler," said she. "We
don't want to stay near horrid, fighting boys. We
will go by ourselves."
And they went. Madame had a headache that
morning, and the Japanese gong did not ring for
fifteen minutes longer. During that time Lily and
Amelia sat together on a little rustic bench under a
twinkling poplar, and they talked, and a sort of
miniature sun-and-satellite relation was established
between them, although neither was aware of it.
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: only two great masters of expression who keep sending their
readers to a glossary.
"Shall we not dare to say of a thief," asks Montaigne, "that
he has a handsome leg?" It is a far more serious claim that
we have to put forward in behalf of Villon. Beside that of
his contemporaries, his writing, so full of colour, so
eloquent, so picturesque, stands out in an almost miraculous
isolation. If only one or two of the chroniclers could have
taken a leaf out of his book, history would have been a
pastime, and the fifteenth century as present to our minds as
the age of Charles Second. This gallows-bird was the one
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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 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: value herself by just comparison with others."
"Shall I travel?--and with you, sir?"
"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice,
and Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden
by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step
also. Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with
disgust, hate, and rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it
healed and cleansed, with a very angel as my comforter."
I laughed at him as he said this. "I am not an angel," I asserted;
"and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr.
Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of
Jane Eyre |
