| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: sensitiveness stupidly spent on nothings to be accounted for? what is
the object of it? No one could have told in this case; Mademoiselle
Gamard herself knew no reason for it. The vicar, though a sheep by
nature, did not like, any more than other sheep, to feel the crook too
often, especially when it bristled with spikes. Not seeking to explain
to himself the patience of the Abbe Troubert, Birotteau simply
withdrew from the happiness which Mademoiselle Gamard believed that
she seasoned to his liking,--for she regarded happiness as a thing to
be made, like her preserves. But the luckless abbe made the break in a
clumsy way, the natural way of his own naive character, and it was not
carried out without much nagging and sharp-shooting, which the Abbe
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: galloping after him, and, looking round, saw the little Duke coming
up on his pony, with his face very flushed and no hat. 'I'm
awfully sorry, Mr. Otis,' gasped out the boy, 'but I can't eat any
dinner as long as Virginia is lost. Please, don't be angry with
me; if you had let us be engaged last year, there would never have
been all this trouble. You won't send me back, will you? I can't
go! I won't go!'
The Minister could not help smiling at the handsome young
scapegrace, and was a good deal touched at his devotion to
Virginia, so leaning down from his horse, he patted him kindly on
the shoulders, and said, 'Well, Cecil, if you won't go back I
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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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: will tell you all about that. The remainder is just ragged,
unthrifty sand hills, to-day pegged down by houses.
From an English point of view there has not been the least
attempt at grading those hills, and indeed you might as well try
to grade the hillocks of Sind. The cable cars have for all
practical purposes made San Francisco a dead level. They take no
count of rise or fall, but slide equably on their appointed
courses from one end to the other of a six-mile street. They
turn corners almost at right angles, cross other lines, and for
aught I know may run up the sides of houses. There is no visible
agency of their flight, but once in awhile you shall pass a
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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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: sometimes been led to question the soundness of her doctrines on
those subjects. Her counsels may be good, as far as they go - in
the main points at least; - but there are some things she has
overlooked in her calculations. I wonder if she was ever in love.
I commenced my career - or my first campaign, as my uncle calls it
- kindling with bright hopes and fancies - chiefly raised by this
conversation - and full of confidence in my own discretion. At
first, I was delighted with the novelty and excitement of our
London life; but soon I began to weary of its mingled turbulence
and constraint, and sigh for the freshness and freedom of home. My
new acquaintances, both male and female, disappointed my
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
