| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: The rest of the evening had its pleasant side. In the intimacy of a
small party each one brought to the conversation his contribution of
epigrams on the figure the visitors from Sancerre had cut during
Lousteau's comments on the paper wrapped round the proofs.
"My dear fellow," said Bianchon to Lousteau as they went to bed--they
had an enormous room with two beds in it--"you will be the happy man
of this woman's choice--/nee/ Piedefer!"
"Do you think so?"
"It is quite natural. You are supposed here to have had many
mistresses in Paris; and to a woman there is something indescribably
inviting in a man whom other women favor--something attractive and
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: COULD be tormented--!
"But WHY can you be?"--his companion was surprised at his use of
the word.
"Because I'm made so--I think of everything."
"Ah one must never do that," she smiled. "One must think of as few
things as possible."
"Then," he answered, "one must pick them out right. But all I mean
is--for I express myself with violence--that she's in a position to
watch me. There's an element of suspense for me, and she can see me
wriggle. But my wriggling doesn't matter," he pursued. "I can bear
it. Besides, I shall wriggle out."
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: at least all who feed on the same plant, the same markings? Of all
unfathomable triumphs of design, (we can only express ourselves
thus, for honest induction, as Paley so well teaches, allows us to
ascribe such results only to the design of some personal will and
mind,) what surpasses that by which the scales on a butterfly's
wing are arranged to produce a certain pattern of artistic beauty
beyond all painter's skill? What a waste of power, on any
utilitarian theory of nature! And once more, why are those strange
microscopic atomies, the Diatomaceae and Infusoria, which fill
every stagnant pool; which fringe every branch of sea-weed; which
form banks hundreds of miles long on the Arctic sea-floor, and the
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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 The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: The truth we fear to know:
Death will end our crying
For friends that come and go.
Her Eyes
Up from the street and the crowds that went,
Morning and midnight, to and fro,
Still was the room where his days he spent,
And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow.
Year after year, with his dream shut fast,
He suffered and strove till his eyes were dim,
For the love that his brushes had earned at last, --
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