| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: fuel, together with forcible representations of amounts owing to the
baker, ending in an acrimonious dispute, in the course of which such
couples reveal their characters in picturesque language. As I
listened, I could make their lives mine, I felt their rags on my back,
I walked with their gaping shoes on my feet; their cravings, their
needs, had all passed into my soul, or my soul had passed into theirs.
It was the dream of a waking man. I waxed hot with them over the
foreman's tyranny, or the bad customers that made them call again and
again for payment.
To come out of my own ways of life, to be another than myself through
a kind of intoxication of the intellectual faculties, and to play this
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: certain servitudes. Some houses standing at the summit have a finer
position or possess legal rights of view which compel their opposite
neighbors to keep their buildings down to a required height. Moreover,
the openings cut in the capricious rock by roads which follow its
declensions and make the ampitheatre habitable, give vistas through
which some estates can see the city, or the river, or the sea. Instead
of rising to an actual peak, the hill ends abruptly in a cliff. At the
end of the street which follows the line of the summit, ravines appear
in which a few villages are clustered (Sainte-Adresse and two or three
other Saint-somethings) together with several creeks which murmur and
flow with the tides of the sea. These half-deserted slopes of
Modeste Mignon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: less surprised by the art with which she had uttered her feelings in verse,
than delighted by the assurance which the verses conveyed. He was now
certain that in all this world he could not hope to meet, much less to win,
a girl more beautiful and witty than this rustic maid before him; and a
voice in his heart seemed to cry out urgently, "Take the luck that the gods
have put in your way!" In short he was bewitched -- bewitched to such a
degree that, without further preliminary, he asked the old people to give
him their daughter in marriage,-- telling them, at the same time, his name
and lineage, and his rank in the train of the Lord of Noto.
They bowed down before him, with many exclamations of grateful
astonishment. But, after some moments of apparent hesitation, the father
Kwaidan |
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 Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost, and teaching them to observe all the commandments
of the Saviour. So they gave light to the people that wandered
in darkness, and abolished the superstitious error of idolatry.
Though the enemy chafeth under his defeat, and even now stirreth
up war against us, the faithful, persuading the fools and unwise
to cling to the worship of idols, yet is his power grown feeble,
and his swords have at last failed him by the power of Christ.
Lo, in few words I have made known unto thee my Master, my God,
and my Saviour; but thou shalt know him more perfectly, if thou
wilt receive his grace into thy soul, and gain the blessing to
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