| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: offspring, I may venture thus to characterize her, having obtained
a sum of a rich relation, for that purpose.
"Soon after her lying-in, she prevailed on my father to take
me home, to save the expense of maintaining me, and of hiring a
girl to assist her in the care of the child. I was young, it was
true, but appeared a knowing little thing, and might be made handy.
Accordingly I was brought to her house; but not to a home--for a
home I never knew. Of this child, a daughter, she was extravagantly
fond; and it was a part of my employment, to assist to spoil her,
by humouring all her whims, and bearing all her caprices. Feeling
her own consequence, before she could speak, she had learned the
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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 voices--the shouting of the dead!
"It is my purpose to make thee happy for ever," she said. "Thou art my
son."
We were sitting before the hearth, the ashes lay cold upon it; the old
shrunken woman grasped my hand so tightly in hers that I could not
choose but stay. I looked fixedly at her, striving to read the story
of her life from the things among which she was crouching. Had she
indeed any life in her? It was a mystery. Yet I saw plainly that once
she must have been young and beautiful; fair, with all the charm of
simplicity, perfect as some Greek statue, with the brow of a vestal.
"Ah! ah!" I cried, "now I know thee! Miserable woman, why hast thou
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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 The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: if the canvas had sagged under the burden of heavy air and was crushing her
breast and heart. Then wave after wave of emotion swept over her. The storm
winds of grief and passion were loosened again. And she writhed in her
misery.
Some one knocked on her door. The Mexican woman called anxiously. Carley
awoke to the fact that her presence was not solitary on the physical earth,
even if her soul seemed stricken to eternal loneliness. Even in the desert
there was a world to consider. Vanity that had bled to death, pride that
had been crushed, availed her not here. But something else came to her support.
The lesson of the West had been to endure, not to shirk--to face an
issue, not to hide. Carley got up, bathed, dressed, brushed and arranged
The Call of the Canyon |
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 Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: antagonistic interests of two factions: the Geulphs and Ghibellines
everywhere; the Capulets and the Montagues at Verona; the Geremei and
the Lomelli at Bologna; the Fieschi and the Doria at Genoa; the
patricians and the populace, the Senate and tribunes of the Roman
republic; the Pazzi and the Medici at Florence; the Sforza and the
Visconti at Milan; the Orsini and the Colonna at Rome,--in short,
everywhere and on every occasion there has been the same impulse
Out in the streets there were already /Genovists/ and /Tintists/.
The Prince escorted the Duchess, more depressed than ever by the loves
of Osiride; she feared some similar disaster to her own, and could
only cling to Emilio, as if to keep him next her heart.
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