| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: her attention to their elder visitor.
"I am speaking of the young men calling so much upon the young ladies,"
the duchess explained.
"But surely in England," said Mrs. Westgate, "the young ladies don't
call upon the young men?"
"Some of them do--almost!" Lady Pimlico declared.
"What the young men are a great parti."
"Bessie, you must make a note of that," said Mrs. Westgate.
"My sister," she added, "is a model traveler. She writes
down all the curious facts she hears in a little book she
keeps for the purpose."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: He did not agree with that. "I don't mean simply intensity of
sensation. I said intensity of perception. You may perceive
harmony, proportion, rhythm, intensely. They are things faint
and slight in themselves, as physical facts, but they are like
the detonator of a bomb: they let loose the explosive. There's
the internal factor as well as the external. . . . I don't know
if I express myself clearly. I mean that the point is that
vividness of perception is the essential factor of beauty; but,
of course, vividness may be created by a whisper."
"That brings us back," said Ann Veronica, "to the mystery. Why
should some things and not others open the deeps?"
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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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: fortunately without doing vital injury.
"You aimed too well, monsieur," said the baron, "to be avenging only a
paltry quarrel."
And he fainted. Monsieur de Ronquerolles, who believed him to be a
dead man, smiled sardonically as he heard those words.
After a fortnight, during which time the dowager and the vidame gave
him those cares of old age the secret of which is in the hands of long
experience only, the baron began to return to life. But one morning
his grandmother dealt him a crushing blow, by revealing anxieties to
which, in her last days, she was now subjected. She showed him a
letter signed F, in which the history of her grandson's secret
Ferragus |
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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: himself from the group, and running to the door of the Marion house
rang the bell violently.
"What can be the matter?" said Frederic Marest, dropping his eyeglass,
and calling the attention of his colleagues to this circumstance.
"The matter is, messieurs," said the sub-prefect, thinking it useless
to keep a secret which was evidently known to the other party, "that
Charles Keller has been killed in Africa, and that this event doubles
the chances of Simon Giguet. You know Arcis; there can be no other
ministerial candidate than Charles Keller. Any other man would find
the whole local patriotism of the place arrayed against him.
"Will they really elect such an idiot as Simon Giguet?" said Olivier
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