| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: Canons. Here and there on this patch of earth, muddy or dry according
to the whimsical Parisian weather, a few trees grew, constantly lashed
by the wind, and teased and broken by the passer-by--willows, reeds,
and tall grasses.
The Eyot, the Seine, the landing-place, the house, were all
overshadowed on the west by the huge basilica of Notre-Dame casting
its cold gloom over the whole plot as the sun moved. Then, as now,
there was not in all Paris a more deserted spot, a more solemn or more
melancholy prospect. The noise of waters, the chanting of priests, or
the piping of the wind, were the only sounds that disturbed this
wilderness, where lovers would sometimes meet to discuss their secrets
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: of thy virginity cannot return; henceforward thou shalt be subject to
a master. Thy hour has come; the hand of death is upon thee. Thy heirs
believe that thou art rich; they will kill thee and find nothing. Yet
try at least to fling away this raiment no longer in fashion; be once
more as in the days of old!--Nay, thou art dead, and by thy own deed!'
"Is not this thy story?" so I ended. "Decrepit, toothless, shivering
crone, now forgotten, going thy ways without so much as a glance from
passers-by! Why art thou still alive? What doest thou in that beggar's
garb, uncomely and desired of none? Where are thy riches?--for what
were they spent? Where are thy treasures?--what great deeds hast thou
done?"
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: she'll do it, you know; she has gone into his studies uncommonly."
"My dear sir," said Sir James, impatiently, "that is neither
here nor there. The question is, whether you don't see with me
the propriety of sending young Ladislaw away?"
"Well, no, not the urgency of the thing. By-and-by, perhaps,
it may come round. As to gossip, you know, sending him away won't
hinder gossip. People say what they like to say, not what they
have chapter and verse for," said Mr Brooke, becoming acute about
the truths that lay on the side of his own wishes. "I might get rid
of Ladislaw up to a certain point--take away the `Pioneer' from him,
and that sort of thing; but I couldn't send him out of the country
Middlemarch |
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 Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: slip-over pinafores. But somehow her thoughts became
jumbled here, so that faces instead of garments filled her
mind's eye. Again and again there swam into her ken the
face of that woman of fifty, in decent widow's weeds, who
had stood there in the Night Court, charged with
drunkenness on the streets. And the man with the frost-
bitten fingers in Madison Square. And the dog in the
sweater. And the feverish concentration of the piece-work
sewers in the window of the loft building.
She gave it up, selected a magazine, and decided to go in to
lunch.
Fanny Herself |
