| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: "Go with you to your door," he mumbled and started forward to the
little gate where the shadowy figure of Mrs. Fyne hovered, clearly
on the lookout for him. She was alone. The children must have been
already in bed and I saw no attending girl-friend shadow near her
vague but unmistakable form, half-lost in the obscurity of the
little garden.
I heard Fyne exclaim "Nothing" and then Mrs. Fyne's well-trained,
responsible voice uttered the words, "It's what I have said," with
incisive equanimity. By that time I had passed on, raising my hat.
Almost at once Fyne caught me up and slowed down to my strolling
gait which must have been infinitely irksome to his high pedestrian
Chance |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: understood each other in the midst of one of the most beautiful scenes
of Nature, whose glories, interpreted by the glory in their hearts,
helped to stamp on their minds the most fugitive details of that
unique hour. There had not been the slightest shade of frivolity in
Francesca's conduct. It was noble, large, and without any second
thought. This magnanimity struck Rodolphe greatly, for in it he
recognized the difference between the Italian and the Frenchwoman. The
waters, the land, the sky, the woman, all were grandiose and suave,
even their love in the midst of this picture, so vast in its expanse,
so rich in detail, where the sternness of the snowy peaks and their
hard folds standing clearly out against the blue sky, reminded
Albert Savarus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: than I. There are women to whom you say, 'I love you.' To me you
have never said more than 'You are a good girl.' Certain speeches
of yours, though you do not know it, gnaw at my heart. Clever men
sometimes ask me what I am thinking. . . . I am thinking of my
self-abasement--the prostration of the poorest outcast in the
presence of the Saviour.
"There are still three more pages, you see. La Palferine allowed me to
take the letter, with the traces of tears that still seemed hot upon
it! Here was proof of the truth of his story. Marcas, a shy man enough
with women, was in ecstacies over a second which he read in his corner
before lighting his pipe with it.
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: recited out of the book. Would not any one who was himself of a noble and
gentle nature, and who loved or ever had loved a nature like his own, when
we tell of the petty causes of lovers' jealousies, and of their exceeding
animosities, and of the injuries which they do to their beloved, have
imagined that our ideas of love were taken from some haunt of sailors to
which good manners were unknown--he would certainly never have admitted the
justice of our censure?
PHAEDRUS: I dare say not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Therefore, because I blush at the thought of this person, and
also because I am afraid of Love himself, I desire to wash the brine out of
my ears with water from the spring; and I would counsel Lysias not to
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