| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: indeed! She can have nothing more to lose."
Bitter reflection! rakes alone are logical and will punish a woman for
devotion. Man created Satan and Lovelace; but a virgin is an angel on
whom he can bestow naught but his own vices. She is so grand, so
beautiful, that he cannot magnify or embellish her; he has only the
fatal power to blast her and drag her down into his own mire.
Montefiore waited for a later and more somnolent hour of the night;
then, in spite of his reflections, he descended the stairs without
boots, armed with his pistols, moving step by step, stopping to
question the silence, putting forth his hands, measuring the stairs,
peering into the darkness, and ready at the slightest incident to fly
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: particularly in music; and she used to sit at her organ, playing
fine old majestic music of the Catholic church, and singing with
a voice more like an angel than a mortal woman; and I would lay my
head down on her lap, and cry, and dream, and feel,--oh,
immeasurably!--things that I had no language to say!
"In those days, this matter of slavery had never been
canvassed as it has now; nobody dreamed of any harm in it.
"My father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some
preexistent state, he must have been in the higher circles of
spirits, and brought all his old court pride along with him; for
it was ingrain, bred in the bone, though he was originally of
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: and beaten into mummy."
No reply was made, but furious strokes from without resounded
upon the door. Robin, Marian, and the baron threw by their
pilgrim's attire, and stood in arms on the defensive.
They were provided with swords, and the cottager gave them
bucklers and helmets, for all Robin's haunts were furnished
with secret armouries. But they kept their swords sheathed,
and the baron wielded a ponderous spear, which he pointed towards
the door ready to run through the first that should enter,
and Robin and Marian each held a bow with the arrow drawn to its
head and pointed in the same direction. The cottager flourished
|
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 Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: lady, "and sin thou hast come in the face of such peril to get
thy ball, thou shalt not go away empty. Whither didst thou strike
it?"
"Over yonder by the cherry-tree," said Myles, jerking his head in
that direction. "An I may go get it, I will trouble ye no more."
As he spoke he made a motion to leave them.
"Stay!" said the Lady Anne, hastily; "remain where thou art. An
thou cross the open, some one may haply see thee from the house,
and will give the alarm, and thou wilt be lost. I will go get thy
ball."
And so she left Myles and her cousin, crossing the little plots
Men of Iron |
