| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: Wenceslas cannot exhibit a masterpiece next season, he must give up
heroic sculpture and be content to execute idyllic subjects, small
figures, pieces of jewelry, and high-class goldsmiths' work!' This
verdict is dreadful to me, for Wenceslas, I know, will never accept
it; he feels he has so many fine ideas."
"Ideas will not pay the tradesman's bills," remarked Lisbeth. "I was
always telling him so--nothing but money. Money is only to be had for
work done--things that ordinary folks like well enough to buy them.
When an artist has to live and keep a family, he had far better have a
design for a candlestick on his counter, or for a fender or a table,
than for groups or statues. Everybody must have such things, while he
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: intermisso cum omnibus copiis eos sequi coepit.
Helvetii omnium rerum inopia adducti legatos de deditione ad eum
miserunt. Qui cum eum in itinere convenissent seque ad pedes proiecissent
suppliciterque locuti flentes pacem petissent, atque eos in eo loco quo
tum essent suum adventum expectare iussisset, paruerunt. Eo postquam
Caesar pervenit, obsides, arma, servos qui ad eos perfugissent, poposcit.
Dum ea conquiruntur et conferuntur, [nocte intermissa] circiter hominum
milia VI eius pagi qui Verbigenus appellatur, sive timore perterriti, ne
armis traditis supplicio adficerentur, sive spe salutis inducti, quod in
tanta multitudine dediticiorum suam fugam aut occultari aut omnino
ignorari posse existimarent, prima nocte e castris Helvetiorum egressi ad
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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 Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: pen had run away with me, and that she might now descend upon me with
that reproof which she knew so well how to exercise in cases of
disrespect. But there was actually a certain pathos in her mildness when
it came. She felt it her duty to go over a good deal of history first,
but:--
"I do not understand the present generation," she finished, "and I
suppose that I was not meant to."
The little sigh in these words did great credit to Aunt Carola.
This vindication off my mind, and relieved by it of the more general
thoughts about Kings Port and the South, which the pantomime of Kings
Port's forced capitulation to Hortense had raised in me, I returned to
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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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: methinks it would make me ill. It is like the breath of a flower;
but I see no flowers in the chamber."
"Nor are there any," replied Giovanni, who had turned pale as the
professor spoke; "nor, I think, is there any fragrance except in
your worship's imagination. Odors, being a sort of element
combined of the sensual and the spiritual, are apt to deceive us
in this manner. The recollection of a perfume, the bare idea of
it, may easily be mistaken for a present reality."
"Ay; but my sober imagination does not often play such tricks,"
said Baglioni; "and, were I to fancy any kind of odor, it would
be that of some vile apothecary drug, wherewith my fingers are
Mosses From An Old Manse |
