| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: which corresponds to neither the time nor the place, and is
expended in nothing, cannot fail to act dangerously. On me in
particular this piece acted in a frightful manner. One would have
said that new sentiments, new virtualities, of which I was
formerly ignorant, had developed in me. 'Ah, yes, that's it!
Not at all as I lived and thought before! This is the right way
to live!'
"Thus I spoke to my soul as I listened to that music. What was
this new thing that I thus learned? That I did not realize, but
the consciousness of this indefinite state filled me with joy.
In that state there was no room for jealousy. The same faces,
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: it,--preaching by example. When the countess asked naively, in a small
and select circle of these friends, what difference there was between
a lover and a husband, all those who wished evil to Felix took care to
reply in a way to pique her curiosity, or fire her imagination, or
touch her heart, or interest her mind.
"Oh! my dear, we vegetate with a husband, but we live with a lover,"
said her sister-in-law, the marquise.
"Marriage, my dear, is our purgatory; love is paradise," said Lady
Dudley.
"Don't believe her," cried Mademoiselle des Touches; "it is hell."
"But a hell we like," remarked Madame de Rochefide. "There is often
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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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: And the sheep bleated on the misty weald,
And from its nest the waking corncrake flew,
Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream
And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could seem,
Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,
'It is young Hylas, that false runaway
Who with a Naiad now would make his bed
Forgetting Herakles,' but others, 'Nay,
It is Narcissus, his own paramour,
Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.'
And when they nearer came a third one cried,
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: Vervain ended.
The words fell strangely on the scented stillness of the room:
they seemed out of harmony with its setting of afternoon
intimacy, the kind of intimacy on which at any moment, a visitor
might intrude without perceptibly lowering the atmosphere. It
was as though a grand opera-singer had strained the acoustics of
a private music-room.
Thursdale stood up, facing his hostess. Half the room was
between them, but they seemed to stare close at each other now
that the veils of reticence and ambiguity had fallen.
His first words were characteristic. "She DOES despise me,
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