| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: demoniac.
Female assistance was now hastily summoned; the unhappy bride
was overpowered, not without the use of some force. As they
carried her over the threshold, she looked down, and
uttered the only articulate words that she had yet spoken,
saying, with a sort of grinning exultation, "So, you have ta'en
up your bonny bridegroom?" She was, by the shuddering
assistants, conveyed to another and more retired apartment, where
she was secured as her situation required, and closely watched.
The unutterable agony of the parents, the horror and confusion of
all who were in the castle, the fury of contending passions
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: can we exclude a bare possibility that some dialogues which are usually
rejected, such as the Greater Hippias and the Cleitophon, may be genuine.
The nature and object of these semi-Platonic writings require more careful
study and more comparison of them with one another, and with forged
writings in general, than they have yet received, before we can finally
decide on their character. We do not consider them all as genuine until
they can be proved to be spurious, as is often maintained and still more
often implied in this and similar discussions; but should say of some of
them, that their genuineness is neither proven nor disproven until further
evidence about them can be adduced. And we are as confident that the
Epistles are spurious, as that the Republic, the Timaeus, and the Laws are
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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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: passing before me, when I heard some one call my name. I turned
round, and saw Lord Murchison. We had not met since we had been at
college together, nearly ten years before, so I was delighted to
come across him again, and we shook hands warmly. At Oxford we had
been great friends. I had liked him immensely, he was so handsome,
so high-spirited, and so honourable. We used to say of him that he
would be the best of fellows, if he did not always speak the truth,
but I think we really admired him all the more for his frankness.
I found him a good deal changed. He looked anxious and puzzled,
and seemed to be in doubt about something. I felt it could not be
modern scepticism, for Murchison was the stoutest of Tories, and
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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 Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: are richer than I, for you have treasures here" (laying her hand upon
his heart) "to which none but God can add." Then, unable to support
her happiness, she laid her head upon her husband's breast.
"My dear niece," said the old man, "in my day we made love; in yours,
you love. You women are all that is best in humanity; you are not even
guilty of your faults, for they come through us."
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Blamont-Chauvry, Princesse de
The Thirteen
Madame Firmiani
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