| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Soon, in the desert's hushed repose,
Shall trumpet tidings through his nose!
Alack, unwise! that nasal song
Shall be the Ounce's dinner-gong!
A blemish in the cut appears;
Alas! it cost both blood and tears.
The glancing graver swerved aside,
Fast flowed the artist's vital tide!
And now the apologetic bard
Demands indulgence for his pard!
Poem: VI - THE ANGLER AND THE CLOWN
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: garden ground; the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their
steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the
far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along the shore and
its background of spruces and balsam firs. When one really knows
a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming
acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at
first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the
growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.
After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in
the course of a yachting cruise, a lover of Dunnet Landing returned
to find the unchanged shores of the pointed firs, the same
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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 The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: on Venetian mirrors, on Brustolone, an Italian tenor who was the
Michael-Angelo of boxwood and holm oak; on the thirteenth, fourteenth,
fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, on the glazes of
Bernard de Palissy, the enamels of Petitot, the engravings of Albrecht
Durer--whom she called Dur; on illuminations on vellum, on Gothic
architecture, early decorated, flamboyant and pure--enough to turn an
old man's brain and fire a young man with enthusiasm.
Madame de la Baudraye, possessed with the idea of waking up Sancerre,
tried to form a so-called literary circle. The Presiding Judge,
Monsieur Boirouge, who happened to have a house and garden on his
hands, part of the Popinot-Chandier property, favored the notion of
The Muse of the Department |
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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: hands. "Yes, I will tell them, I will tell them!" she said; "I am almost
there!" She ran forward again, then hesitated. She shaded her eyes from
the moonlight, and looked. Between her and the farmhouse there were three
figures moving over the low bushes.
In the sheeny moonlight you could see how they moved on, slowly and
furtively; the short one, and the one in light clothes, and the one in
dark.
"I cannot help them now!" she cried, and sank down on the ground, with her
little hands clasped before her.
...
"Awake, awake!" said the farmer's wife; "I hear a strange noise; something
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