| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: "What can I do?" exclaimed Wilfrid. "She knows of secrets in my past
life known only to me."
"I shall be curious if she can tell me thoughts that I have confided
to no living person," said Monsieur Becker.
Minna entered the room.
"Well, my daughter, and how is your familiar spirit?"
"He suffers, father," she answered, bowing to Wilfrid. "Human
passions, clothed in their false riches, surrounded him all night, and
showed him all the glories of the world. But you think these things
mere tales."
"Tales as beautiful to those who read them in their brains as the
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: when you had been there a bit."
"Why was that falling-off?"
Her black eyes flashed up to his face for one moment by
way of answer.
"Izz!--how weak of you--for such as I!" he said, and
fell into reverie. "Then--suppose I had asked YOU to
marry me?"
"If you had I should have said 'Yes', and you would
have married a woman who loved 'ee!"
"Really!"
"Down to the ground!" she whispered vehemently. "O my
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: eyes were dry: no cry of sorrow or whisper of thanks
went up to heaven from her lips. Life had been too
hard, for all the efforts of his love. It had silenced her
emotions. But for the first time in all these years its
sting had departed, the carking care of poverty, the
meanness of a hard struggle for bread. Even the image
of her husband and of her children seemed to glide away
from her into the gray twilight; it was her father's
face alone that she saw, as though he had come to see
her, always quiet and big, as she had seen him last, but
with something more august and tender in his aspect.
End of the Tether |
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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: doubled; for the vintage, it is doubled again. What can La Grenadiere
be worth, you wonder; La Grenadiere, with its stone staircase, its
beaten path and triple terrace, its two acres of vineyard, its
flowering roses about the balustrades, its worn steps, well-head,
rampant clematis, and cosmopolitan trees? It is idle to make a bid! La
Grenadiere will never be in the market; it was brought once and sold,
but that was in 1690; and the owner parted with it for forty thousand
francs, reluctant as any Arab of the desert to relinquish a favorite
horse. Since then it has remained in the same family, its pride, its
patrimonial jewel, its Regent diamond. "While you behold, you have and
hold," says the bard. And from La Grenadiere you behold three valleys
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