| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: on Wednesdays, when Mademoiselle Cormon gave a dinner, on which
occasion the guests invited on the previous Wednesday paid their
"visit of digestion." Wednesdays were gala days: the assembly was
numerous; guests and visitors appeared in fiocchi; some women brought
their sewing, knitting, or worsted work; the young girls were not
ashamed to make patterns for the Alencon point lace, with the proceeds
of which they paid for their personal expenses. Certain husbands
brought their wives out of policy, for young men were few in that
house; not a word could be whispered in any ear without attracting the
attention of all; there was therefore no danger, either for young
girls or wives, of love-making.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: superstitious fear; and though I did not stop in my advance, yet I
went on slowly, like a man who should have passed a bourne
unnoticed, and strayed into the country of the dead. For there,
upon the narrow new-made road, between the stripling pines, was a
mediaeval friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday
of my childhood I used to study the Hermits of Marco Sadeler -
enchanting prints, full of wood and field and mediaeval landscapes,
as large as a county, for the imagination to go a-travelling in;
and here, sure enough, was one of Marco Sadeler's heroes. He was
robed in white like any spectre, and the hood falling back, in the
instancy of his contention with the barrow, disclosed a pate as
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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 Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: carried away again in such a fashion, she shall mark a cross with
the piece of chalk on the door of the house to which she is
taken. Then we shall find the rogue that is playing such a trick,
and that quickly enough."
"Yes," said the king; "that is very good advice."
"I will do it," said the princess.
All that day Jacob Stuck sat thinking and thinking about the
beautiful princess. He could not eat a bite, and he could hardly
wait for the night to come. As soon as it had fallen, he breathed
upon his piece of glass and rubbed his thumb upon it, and there
stood the Genie of Good Luck.
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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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: one another to fight bravely, and recollect that the world had
its eyes upon them; although, in simple truth, the only
spectator was the Giant Antaeus, with his one, great, stupid
eye in the middle of his forehead.
When the two armies joined battle, the cranes would rush
forward, flapping their wings and stretching out their necks,
and would perhaps snatch up some of the Pygmies crosswise in
their beaks. Whenever this happened, it was truly an awful
spectacle to see those little men of might kicking and
sprawling in the air, and at last disappearing down the crane's
long, crooked throat, swallowed up alive. A hero, you know,
Tanglewood Tales |
