| 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: to those who subdue their natural desires to His commandments. My
beloved, you are now to know all, for I would not leave you in
ignorance of any thought of mine. What I confide to God in my last
hour you, too, must know,--you, king of my heart as He is King of
Heaven.
Until the ball given to the Duc d'Angouleme (the only ball at
which I was ever present), marriage had left me in that ignorance
which gives to the soul of a young girl the beauty of the angels.
True, I was a mother, but love had never surrounded me with its
permitted pleasures. How did this happen? I do not know; neither
do I know by what law everything within me changed in a moment.
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 Poems by Oscar Wilde: And begs in vain the ashes of her son.
O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:
Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;
Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.
IV.
How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!
No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.
The broken chain lies rusting on the door,
And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:
Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run
By the stone lions blinking in the sun.
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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 Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: the trailing arbutus in the air around her. In a sheltered, sunny
nook, she found a single erythronium, lured forth in advance of its
proper season, and gathered it as a relic of the spot, which she
might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck it, her own face
looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the spring rains.
Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft radiance, and
the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, evoked
from the past, to bid her farewell. "Farewell!" she whispered,
taking leave at once, as she believed, of youth and the memory of
love.
During those years she had more than once been sought in marriage,
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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 Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: and come forth anon. The Archbishop is on his way to Dalworth,
and my Lord escorts him so far as Uppingham. I and those others
are to go along. Dost thou know my Lord by sight?"
"Nay," said Myles, "I know him not."
"Then I will tell thee when he cometh. Listen!" said he, as a
confused clattering sounded in the court-yard without. "Yonder
are the horses now. They come presently. Busk thee with thy
letter, friend Myles."
The attendants who passed through the anteroom now came and went
more hurriedly, and Myles knew that the Earl must be about to
come forth. He had hardly time to untie his pouch, take out the
Men of Iron |
