| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: equality of situation--I mean, as far as regards society, and all the
habits and manners that are important; equality in every point but one--
and that one, since the purity of her heart is not to be doubted,
such as must increase his felicity, for it will be his to bestow the
only advantages she wants.--A man would always wish to give a woman
a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it,
where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest
of mortals.--Frank Churchill is, indeed, the favourite of fortune.
Every thing turns out for his good.--He meets with a young woman
at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even weary her
by negligent treatment--and had he and all his family sought round
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: comments and corrections of his own, must have had a great influence
on the minds of the Montpellier students; and still more influence--
and that not altogether a good one--must Rabelais's lighter talk
have had, as he lounged--so the story goes--in his dressing-gown
upon the public place, picking up quaint stories from the cattle-
drivers off the Cevennes, and the villagers who came in to sell
their olives and their grapes, their vinegar and their vine-twig
faggots, as they do unto this day. To him may be owing much of the
sound respect for natural science, and much, too, of the contempt
for the superstition around them, which is notable in that group of
great naturalists who were boys in Montpellier at that day.
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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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: room. The illusions of life were going one by one.
Then Marie and his brother felt their mother's lips hot as fire
beneath their kisses; and at last, on the Saturday evening, Mme.
Willemsens was too ill to bear the slightest sound, and her room was
left in disorder. This neglect for a woman of refined taste, who clung
so persistently to the graces of life, meant the beginning of the
death-agony. After this, Louis refused to leave his mother. On Sunday
night, in the midst of the deepest silence, when Louis thought that
she had grown drowsy, he saw a white, moist hand move the curtain in
the lamplight.
"My son!" she said. There was something so solemn in the dying woman's
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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 The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: host said to me, after we reached home that evening, "I stayed because
I saw you were dying to do so; but if you do not succeed in making it
all right, I may find myself on bad terms with my neighbors." That
expression, "if you do not make it all right," made me ponder the
matter deeply. In other words, if I pleased Madame de Mortsauf, she
would not be displeased with the man who introduced me to her. He
evidently thought I had the power to please her; this in itself gave
me that power, and corroborated my inward hope at a moment when it
needed some outward succor.
"I am afraid it will be difficult," he began; "Madame de Chessel
expects us."
The Lily of the Valley |
