| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: for her needle in working for the unhappy prostitutes who make this
street their hunting ground. Marianna assures me that among those poor
creatures she has met with such consideration and generosity as I, for
my part, ascribe to the ascendency of virtue so pure that even vice is
compelled to respect it."
"Hope on," said Andrea. "Perhaps you have reached the end of your
trials. And while waiting for the time when my endeavor, seconding
yours, shall set your labors in a true light, allow me, as a fellow-
countryman and an artist like yourself, to offer you some little
advances on the undoubted success of your score."
"All that has to do with matters of material existence I leave to my
Gambara |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: is nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so
fine a house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me
if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes;
for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic, and he was
always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see
he has not kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now
he is gone back again himself, and I never see him."
After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room, it
appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the
schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors;
but there was one bookcase left open containing everything that
Jane Eyre |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: were less elastic than of yore; they were evidently looking for
something they didn't find. The Dorringtons hadn't re-appeared,
the princes had scattered; wasn't that the beginning of the end?
Mrs. Moreen had lost her reckoning of the famous "days"; her social
calendar was blurred - it had turned its face to the wall.
Pemberton suspected that the great, the cruel discomfiture had been
the unspeakable behaviour of Mr. Granger, who seemed not to know
what he wanted, or, what was much worse, what they wanted. He kept
sending flowers, as if to bestrew the path of his retreat, which
was never the path of a return. Flowers were all very well, but -
Pemberton could complete the proposition. It was now positively
|
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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: existed before; and who can tell what may be the event? The property
of no man is secure in the present unbraced system of things. The mind
of the multitude is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before
them, they pursue such as fancy or opinion starts. Nothing is criminal;
there is no such thing as treason; wherefore, every one thinks himself
at liberty to act as he pleases. The Tories dared not have assembled
offensively, had they known that their lives, by that act, were forfeited
to the laws of the state. A line of distinction should be drawn, between,
English soldiers taken in battle, and inhabitants of America taken in arms.
The first are prisoners, but the latter traitors.
The one forfeits his liberty, the other his head.
Common Sense |
