| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: external appearance; but she knew nothing of the things of marriage
nor the demands of a home. To her, the Comte de Manerville, a rising
diplomatist, to whom the courts of Europe were known, and one of the
most elegant young men in Paris, could not seem, what perhaps he was,
an ordinary man, without moral force, timid, though brave in some
ways, energetic perhaps in adversity, but helpless against the
vexations and annoyances that hinder happiness. Would she, in after
years, have sufficient tact and insight to distinguish Paul's noble
qualities in the midst of his minor defects? Would she not magnify the
latter and forget the former, after the manner of young wives who know
nothing of life? There comes a time when wives will pardon defects in
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: I gazed at him inflexibly. Let the beggar suffer.
He slapped his forehead and I passed in, pursued,
into the dining room, by his screech: "I always
said you'd be the death of me."
This clamour not only overtook me, but went
ahead as it were on to the verandah and brought
out Captain Giles.
He stood before me in the doorway in all the
commonplace solidity of his wisdom. The gold
chain glittered on his breast. He clutched a
smouldering pipe.
The Shadow Line |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: young Powell, his faculties having been put on the alert, began to
think that there was something unusual about the man who had given
him his chance in life. Yes, decidedly, his captain was "strange."
There was something wrong somewhere, he said to himself, never
guessing that his young and candid eyes were in the presence of a
passion profound, tyrannical and mortal, discovering its own
existence, astounded at feeling itself helpless and dismayed at
finding itself incurable.
Powell had never before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly
as on that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs.
Anthony laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the
Chance |
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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: of Agazymba, which is four months' journey south of the Garamantians,
and from regions further still! In spite of their red wooden jewels,
the filth of their black skin made them look like mulberries that had
been long rolling in the dust. They had bark-thread drawers, dried-
grass tunics, fallow-deer muzzles on their heads; they shook rods
furnished with rings, and brandished cows' tails at the end of sticks,
after the fashion of standards, howling the while like wolves.
Then behind the Numidians, Marusians, and Gaetulians pressed the
yellowish men, who are spread through the cedar forests beyond Taggir.
They had cat-skin quivers flapping against their shoulders, and they
led in leashes enormous dogs, which were as high as asses, and did not
Salammbo |
