| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: trying to put a special vibration and his own notion of colour into
his life; and perhaps even to give it a modelling according to his
own ideas. And for all you know he may be on the track of a
masterpiece; but observe: if it happens to be one nobody will see
it. It can be only for himself. And even he won't be able to see
it in its completeness except on his death-bed. There is something
fine in that."
I had blushed with pleasure; such fine ideas had never entered my
head. But there was something fine. . . . How far all this seemed!
How mute and how still! What a phantom he was, that man with a
beard of at least seven tones of brown. And those shades of the
The Arrow of Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: pretty effect to the whole.
I sat at dinner between Lord Braybrooke and Sir John Boileau, and
found them both very agreeable. The dining-room is as magnificent
as the other apartments. The ceiling is in the Elizabethan style,
covered with figures, and the walls white and gold panelling hung
with full-length family portraits not set into the wall like the
saloon, but in frames. In the evening the young people had a round
game at cards and the elder ones seemed to prefer talking to a game
at whist. The ladies brought down their embroidery or netting. At
eleven a tray with wine and water is brought in and a quantity of
bed candlesticks, and everybody retires when they like. The next
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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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: The white-haired workman whom Marius had encountered in the vicinity
of the Invalides recurred to his mind. It now seemed probable that
that workingman and M. Leblanc were one and the same person. So he
disguised himself? That man had his heroic and his equivocal sides.
Why had he not called for help? Why had he fled? Was he,
or was he not, the father of the young girl? Was he, in short,
the man whom Thenardier thought that he recognized? Thenardier might
have been mistaken. These formed so many insoluble problems.
All this, it is true, detracted nothing from the angelic charms
of the young girl of the Luxembourg. Heart-rending distress;
Marius bore a passion in his heart, and night over his eyes.
Les Miserables |
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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: large sensual endowments must claim indulgence, at their feeding-time.
But, for once, the Judge is entirely too late for dinner! Too late,
we fear, even to join the party at their wine! The guests are warm
and merry; they have given up the Judge; and, concluding that the
Free-Soilers have him, they will fix upon another candidate. Were our
friend now to stalk in among them, with that wide-open stare, at once
wild and stolid, his ungenial presence would be apt to change their
cheer. Neither would it be seemly in Judge Pyncheon, generally so
scrupulous in his attire, to show himself at a dinner-table with
that crimson stain upon his shirt-bosom. By the bye, how came it
there? It is an ugly sight, at any rate; and the wisest way for the
House of Seven Gables |
