| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: night. But as the furniture is to be seized, the Englishwoman has cut
her stick, all the more because she cost too much for a little
whipper-snapper like Lucien."
"You cry up de goots," said Nucingen.
"Naturally," said Asie. "I lend to the beauties; and it pays, for you
get two commissions for one job."
Asie was amusing herself by caricaturing the manners of a class of
women who are even greedier but more wheedling and mealy-mouthed than
the Malay woman, and who put a gloss of the best motives on the trade
they ply. Asie affected to have lost all her illusions, five lovers,
and some children, and to have submitted to be robbed by everybody in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: when one owed money, couldn't last for ever; and when the treasure
was gone - the boy knew when it had failed - Morgan did break
ground. The party had returned to Nice at the beginning of the
winter, but not to the charming villa. They went to an hotel,
where they stayed three months, and then moved to another
establishment, explaining that they had left the first because,
after waiting and waiting, they couldn't get the rooms they wanted.
These apartments, the rooms they wanted, were generally very
splendid; but fortunately they never COULD get them - fortunately,
I mean, for Pemberton, who reflected always that if they had got
them there would have been a still scantier educational fund. What
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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 A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: broke out in an eruption of spouts.
He realised that the ideas passing from him did not arise in his
intellect, but had their source in the fathomless depths of his will.
He could not decide what character they should have, but he was able
to force them out, or retard them, by the exercise of his volition.
At first nothing changed around him. Then the moon grew dimmer, and
a strange, new radiance began to illuminate the landscape. It
increased so imperceptibly that it was some time before he recognised
it as the Muspel-light which he had seen in the Wombflash Forest. He
could not give it a colour, or a name, but it filled him with a sort
of stern and sacred awe. He called up the resources of his powerful
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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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: punished for not working. The Fathers, too often deluded by shammed
ailments, would not believe in real suffering.
The price paid for our schooling and board also covered the cost of
clothing. The committee contracted for the shoes and clothes supplied
to the boys; hence the weekly inspection of which I have spoken. This
plan, though admirable for the manager, is always disastrous to the
managed. Woe to the boy who indulged in the bad habit of treading his
shoes down at heel, of cracking the shoe-leather, or wearing out the
soles too fast, whether from a defect in his gait, or by fidgeting
during lessons in obedience to the instinctive need of movement common
to all children. That boy did not get through the winter without great
Louis Lambert |
