| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: his ardent soul nor his loving heart. Domestic life, so calm, so
tender, which the very name of Flanders recalled to him, seemed far
more fitted to his character and to the aspirations of his heart. No
gilded Parisian salon had effaced from his mind the harmonies of the
panelled parlor and the little garden where his happy childhood had
slipped away. A man must needs be without a home to remain in Paris,--
Paris, the city of cosmopolitans, of men who wed the world, and clasp
her with the arms of Science, Art, or Power.
The son of Flanders came back to Douai, like La Fontaine's pigeon to
its nest; he wept with joy as he re-entered the town on the day of the
Gayant procession,--Gayant, the superstitious luck of Douai, the glory
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: by the gradual breaking-up of the blank-verse in the later plays,
by the predominance given to prose, and by the over-importance
assigned to characterisation. The passages in Shakespeare - and
they are many - where the language is uncouth, vulgar, exaggerated,
fantastic, obscene even, are entirely due to Life calling for an
echo of her own voice, and rejecting the intervention of beautiful
style, through which alone should life be suffered to find
expression. Shakespeare is not by any means a flawless artist. He
is too fond of going directly to life, and borrowing life's natural
utterance. He forgets that when Art surrenders her imaginative
medium she surrenders everything. Goethe says, somewhere -
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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 Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: curves of the throat where it joined the shoulders. From the aspect of
the young girl's face, at once ethereal and intelligent, where the
delicacy of a Greek nose with its rosy nostrils and firm modelling
marked something positive and defined; where the poetry enthroned upon
an almost mystic brow seemed belied at times by the pleasure-loving
expression of the mouth; where candor claimed the depths profound and
varied of the eye, and disputed them with a spirit of irony that was
trained and educated,--from all these signs an observer would have
felt that this young girl, with the keen, alert ear that waked at
every sound, with a nostril open to catch the fragrance of the
celestial flower of the Ideal, was destined to be the battle-ground of
Modeste Mignon |
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 Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: "Pooh! what a fool I am to think of such a thing!" exclaimed she
impatiently, as she rose from the door stone. "I am a beggar, and
what right have I to think of being a fine lady, while my poor
sick mother has nothing to eat and drink? It is very hard to be
so poor, but I suppose it is all for the best."
"Do you want me, Katy?" said a voice from the door, which Katy
recognized as that of Master Simon Sneed.
"I want to see you very much," replied Katy.
"Wait a moment, and I will join you."
And in a moment Master Simon Sneed did join her; but he is so
much of a curiosity, and so much of a character, that I must stop
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