| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: send word to him unless you have seen it first----'
"Towards two o'clock in the morning, Isaure was standing beside a
diminutive Shepherdess of the Alps, a little woman of forty,
coquettish as a Zerlina. A footman announced that 'Mme. la Baronne's
carriage stops the way,' and Godefroid forthwith saw his beautiful
maiden out of a German song draw her fantastical mother into the
cloakroom, whither Malvina followed them; and (boy that he was) he
must needs go to discover into what pot of preserves the infant Joby
had fallen, and had the pleasure of watching Isaure and Malvina
coaxing that sparkling person, their mamma, into her pelisse, with all
the little tender precautions required for a night journey in Paris.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: wide, uncomfortable pause.
"Do come and see the Michaelmas daisies at the end of the
garden," said Mr. Manning, "they're a dream." And Ann Veronica
found herself being carried off to an isolation even remoter and
more conspicuous than the corner of the lawn, with the whole of
the party aiding and abetting and glancing at them. "Damn!" said
Ann Veronica to herself, rousing herself for a conflict.
Mr. Manning told her he loved beauty, and extorted a similar
admission from her; he then expatiated upon his own love of
beauty. He said that for him beauty justified life, that he
could not imagine a good action that was not a beautiful one nor
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: That the great moral combat between human life
And each human soul must be single. The strife
None can share, though by all its results may be known.
When the soul arms for battle, she goes forth alone.
I say not, indeed, we shall meet nevermore,
For I know not. But meet, as we have met of yore,
I know that we cannot. Perchance we may meet
By the death-bed, the tomb, in the crowd, in the street,
Or in solitude even, but never again
Shall we meet from henceforth as we have met, Eugene.
For we know not the way we are going, nor yet
|
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 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale
come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away----" Her
voice sang: "It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?"
"Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough
after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables."
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her
head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all
subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the
last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again,
pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every
one, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom
The Great Gatsby |
