| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: of genius, and delight in them as a spectacle, but as to living with
them? Never.--No, no. It is like wanting to find pleasure in
inspecting the machinery of the opera instead of sitting in a box to
enjoy its brilliant illusions. But this misfortune has fallen on you,
my poor child, has it not? Well, then, you must try to arm yourself
against tyranny."
"Ah, madame, before coming in here, only seeing you as I came in, I
already detected some arts of which I had no suspicion."
"Well, come and see me sometimes, and it will not be long before you
have mastered the knowledge of these trifles, important, too, in their
way. Outward things are, to fools, half of life; and in that matter
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: others - besides, he was reformed now. Yes, they can all play the
hypocrite when they want to take in a fond, misguided woman!'
'Well, I think he's about as good as she is,' said I. 'But when
Mr. Huntingdon is married, he won't have many opportunities of
consorting with his bachelor friends; - and the worse they are, the
more I long to deliver him from them.'
'To be sure, my dear; and the worse he is, I suppose, the more you
long to deliver him from himself.'
'Yes, provided he is not incorrigible - that is, the more I long to
deliver him from his faults - to give him an opportunity of shaking
off the adventitious evil got from contact with others worse than
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: thought herself, Carol had been reared to assume that servants
belong to a distinct and inferior species. But she discovered
that Bea was extraordinarily like girls she had loved in college,
and as a companion altogether superior to the young matrons
of the Jolly Seventeen. Daily they became more frankly two
girls playing at housework. Bea artlessly considered Carol
the most beautiful and accomplished lady in the country; she
was always shrieking, "My, dot's a swell hat!" or, "Ay t'ink
all dese ladies yoost die when dey see how elegant you do
your hair!" But it was not the humbleness of a servant, nor
the hypocrisy of a slave; it was the admiration of Freshman
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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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been thought
to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in
which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and
round irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I
decide, for a thousandth time, that I will walk into the
southwest or west. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go
free. Thither no business leads me. It is hard for me to believe
that I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient wildness and
freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not excited by the
prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest which I
see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward the
Walking |
