| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: fastened to his desk, but known to a few foresters, to a few woodsmen,
and to some dreamers. Nature can show effects the significations of
which are limitless; they rise to the grandeur of the highest moral
conceptions--be it the heather in bloom, covered with the diamonds of
the dew on which the sunlight dances; infinitude decked for the single
glance that may chance to fall upon it:--be it a corner of the forest
hemmed in with time-worn rocks crumbling to gravel and clothed with
mosses overgrown with juniper, which grasps our minds as something
savage, aggressive, terrifying as the cry of the kestrel issuing from
it:--be it a hot and barren moor without vegetation, stony, rigid, its
horizon like those of the desert, where once I gathered a sublime and
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: (they never got beyond), was become a mere nothing.
The nights were too dark for the ladies to meet again till the morrow,
but Captain Harville had promised them a visit in the evening;
and he came, bringing his friend also, which was more than
had been expected, it having been agreed that Captain Benwick
had all the appearance of being oppressed by the presence of
so many strangers. He ventured among them again, however,
though his spirits certainly did not seem fit for the mirth
of the party in general.
While Captains Wentworth and Harville led the talk on one side of the room,
and by recurring to former days, supplied anecdotes in abundance
Persuasion |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Till ye have battled with great grief and fears,
And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years,
Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife,
Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.
THE POET'S LOVE-SONG
In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong,
I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind
The world to my desire, and hold the wind
A voiceless captive to my conquering song.
I need thee not, I am content with these:
Keep silence in thy soul, beyond the seas!
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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 Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: to the Rio de la Plata, as they supposed, but was now one of the
greatest geniuses of the French school of painting; a fact the family
did not believe. The eldest son, Don Juan de Lora assured his cousin
Gazonal that he was certainly the dupe of some Parisian wag.
Now the said Gazonal was intending to go to Paris to prosecute a
lawsuit which the prefect of the Eastern Pyrenees had arbitrarily
removed from the usual jurisdiction, transferring it to that of the
Council of State. The worthy provincial determined to investigate this
act, and to ask his Parisian cousin the reason of such high-handed
measures. It thus happened that Monsieur Gazonal came to Paris, took
shabby lodgings in the rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, and was amazed to
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