| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: Besancon would have been no son of the soil. Amedee wanted to achieve
a good marriage by proving some day that his farms were not mortgaged,
and that he had some savings. He wanted to be the talk of the town, to
be the finest and best-dressed man there, in order to win first the
attention, and then the hand, of Mademoiselle Rosalie de Watteville.
In 1830, at the time when young Monsieur de Soulas was setting up in
business as a dandy, Rosalie was but fourteen. Hence, in 1834,
Mademoiselle de Watteville had reached the age when young persons are
easily struck by the peculiarities which attracted the attention of
the town to Amedee. There are so many /lions/ who become /lions/ out
of self-interest and speculation. The Wattevilles, who for twelve
Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: lockmaker in the whole of Scotland can mend a bolt, things must spoil.
Every door was left open. She listened. The drawing-room door was open;
the hall door was open; it sounded as if the bedroom doors were open; and
certainly the window on the landing was open, for that she had opened
herself. That windows should be open, and doors shut--simple as it was,
could none of them remember it? She would go into the maids' bedrooms
at night and find them sealed like ovens, except for Marie's, the Swiss
girl, who would rather go without a bath than without fresh air, but then
at home, she had said, "the mountains are so beautiful." She had said
that last night looking out of the window with tears in her eyes.
"The mountains are so beautiful." Her father was dying there,
To the Lighthouse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: of barbarism complete. I found a place that was officially
described as a church. It was a circus really, but that the
worshippers did not know. There were flowers all about the
building, which was fitted up with plush and stained oak and much
luxury, including twisted brass candlesticks of severest Gothic
design.
To these things and a congregation of savages entered suddenly a
wonderful man, completely in the confidence of their God, whom he
treated colloquially and exploited very much as a newspaper
reporter would exploit a foreign potentate. But, unlike the
newspaper reporter, he never allowed his listeners to forget that
|
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 O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: at home; tailors, locksmiths, joiners, cigar-
makers, etc. Bergson himself had worked in a
shipyard.
For weeks, John Bergson had been thinking
about these things. His bed stood in the sitting-
room, next to the kitchen. Through the day,
while the baking and washing and ironing were
going on, the father lay and looked up at the
roof beams that he himself had hewn, or out at
the cattle in the corral. He counted the cattle
O Pioneers! |
