| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Thy knotty and combined lockes to part,
And each particular haire to stand an end,
Like Quilles vpon the fretfull Porpentine:
But this eternall blason must not be
To eares of flesh and bloud; list Hamlet, oh list,
If thou didst euer thy deare Father loue
Ham. Oh Heauen!
Gho. Reuenge his foule and most vnnaturall Murther
Ham. Murther?
Ghost. Murther most foule, as in the best it is;
But this most foule, strange, and vnnaturall
Hamlet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: to be diversified.
Solitude revealed to him all her secrets, and enveloped him in her
delights. He discovered in the rising and setting of the sun sights
unknown to the world. He knew what it was to tremble when he heard
over his head the hiss of a bird's wing, so rarely did they pass, or
when he saw the clouds, changing and many colored travelers, melt one
into another. He studied in the night time the effect of the moon upon
the ocean of sand, where the simoom made waves swift of movement and
rapid in their change. He lived the life of the Eastern day, marveling
at its wonderful pomp; then, after having reveled in the sight of a
hurricane over the plain where the whirling sands made red, dry mists
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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 Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: wrists, breasts, backs, and sleeves with honeycomb-work.
Two or three women in pattens brought up the rear.
"The Philistines be upon us." said Liddy, making her
nose white against the glass.
"Oh, very well. Maryann, go down and keep them
in the kitchen till I am dressed, and then show them in
to me in the hall."
CHAPTER X
HALF-AN-HOUR later Bathsheba, in finished dress,
and followed by Liddy, entered the upper end of the old
hall to find that her men had all deposited themselves on
Far From the Madding Crowd |
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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: veteran, after having served from 1830 to 1834 as Commandant of the
military division, including the departments of Brittany, the scene of
his exploits in 1799 and 1800, had come to settle in Paris near his
brother, for whom he had a fatherly affection.
This old soldier's heart was in sympathy with his sister-in-law; he
admired her as the noblest and saintliest of her sex. He had never
married, because he hoped to find a second Adeline, though he had
vainly sought for her through twenty campaigns in as many lands. To
maintain her place in the esteem of this blameless and spotless old
republican--of whom Napoleon had said, "That brave old Hulot is the
most obstinate republican, but he will never be false to me"--Adeline
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