| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: grow accustomed to seeing you. Whenever words will not rend my heart,
if the day should ever come when I recover courage, I will speak to
you, but not till then. Look at the valley," she said, pointing to the
Indre, "it hurts me, I love it still."
"Ah, perish England and all her women! I will send my resignation to
the king; I will live and die here, pardoned."
"No, love her; love that woman! Henriette is not. This is no play, and
you should know it."
She left the room, betraying by the tone of her last words the extent
of her wounds. I ran after her and held her back, saying, "Do you no
longer love me?"
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: the gulls cried about the towers, and the wind crooned in the
chimneys of the house. Nine years they sat, and every year when it
fell autumn, the man said, "This is the hour, and I have power in
it"; and the daughter of the King said, "Nay, but pipe me the song
of the morrow". And he piped it, and it was long like years.
Now when the nine years were gone, the King's daughter of Duntrine
got her to her feet, like one that remembers; and she looked about
her in the masoned house; and all her servants were gone; only the
man that piped sat upon the terrace with the hand upon his face;
and as he piped the leaves ran about the terrace and the sea beat
along the wall. Then she cried to him with a great voice, "This is
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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 Aeneid by Virgil: With banish'd gods, and with a baffled host,
Yet now aspir'd to conquest of the state,
And claim'd a title from the gods and fate;
What num'rous nations in his quarrel came,
And how they spread his formidable name.
What he design'd, what mischief might arise,
If fortune favor'd his first enterprise,
Was left for him to weigh, whose equal fears,
And common interest, was involv'd in theirs.
While Turnus and th' allies thus urge the war,
The Trojan, floating in a flood of care,
Aeneid |
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 Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: dreading to put to flight the agreeable ideas hovering over
his patron's meditations, whatever they were, the faithful
Nubian walked on tiptoe towards the door, holding his
breath, lest its faintest sound should dissipate his
master's happy reverie.
It was noon, and Monte Cristo had set apart one hour to be
passed in the apartments of Haidee, as though his oppressed
spirit could not all at once admit the feeling of pure and
unmixed joy, but required a gradual succession of calm and
gentle emotions to prepare his mind to receive full and
perfect happiness, in the same manner as ordinary natures
The Count of Monte Cristo |
