| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: Is rolling on its course of light
In endless bliss, through endless years;
I'll think, there's not one world above,
Far as these straining eyes can see,
Where Wisdom ever laughed at Love,
Or Virtue crouched to Infamy;
Where, writhing 'neath the strokes of Fate,
The mangled wretch was forced to smile;
To match his patience 'gainst her hate,
His heart rebellious all the while.
Where Pleasure still will lead to wrong,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: from a cookshop, never spending more than twenty-five sous.
Young Monsieur de Soulas was supposed to be a spendthrift, recklessly
extravagant, whereas the poor man made the two ends meet in the year
with a keenness and skill which would have done honor to a thrifty
housewife. At Besancon in those days no one knew how great a tax on a
man's capital were six francs spent in polish to spread on his boots
or shoes, yellow gloves at fifty sous a pair, cleaned in the deepest
secrecy to make them three times renewed, cravats costing ten francs,
and lasting three months, four waistcoats at twenty-five francs, and
trousers fitting close to the boots. How could he do otherwise, since
we see women in Paris bestowing their special attention on simpletons
Albert Savarus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: withered heart. She had heard it said that men of fifty were apt to
love young girls of just that kind. Before the colonel had come
regularly to the house Sylvie had heard in the Tiphaines' salon
strange stories of his life and morals. Old maids preserve in their
love-affairs the exaggerated Platonic sentiments which young girls of
twenty are wont to profess; they hold to these fixed doctrines like
all who have little experience of life and no personal knowledge of
how great social forces modify, impair, and bring to nought such grand
and noble ideas. The mere thought of being jilted by the colonel was
torture to Sylvie's brain. She lay in her bed going over and over her
own desires, Pierrette's conduct, and the song which had awakened her
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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 Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: fall!"
"How, dear? I don't understand."
"Kite flying on a night like this from a place like the tower of
Castra Regis is, to say the least of it, dangerous. It is not
merely courting death or other accident from lightning, but it is
bringing the lightning into where he lives. Every cloud that is
blowing up here--and they all make for the highest point--is bound
to develop into a flash of lightning. That kite is up in the air
and is bound to attract the lightning. Its cord makes a road for it
on which to travel to earth. When it does come, it will strike the
top of the tower with a weight a hundred times greater than a whole
Lair of the White Worm |
