| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: lisped through excess of genteel deportment. Tatan Nene alone
transgressed. They had been telling her as they came along that six
absolutely naked Negroes would serve up Nana's supper, and she now
grew anxious about them and asked to see them. Labordette called
her a goose and besought her to be silent.
"And Bordenave?" asked Fauchery.
"Oh, you may imagine how miserable I am," cried Nana; "he won't be
able to join us."
"Yes," said Rose Mignon, "his foot caught in a trap door, and he's
got a fearful sprain. If only you could hear him swearing, with his
leg tied up and laid out on a chair!"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: Even where his habits were known, there was no discrimination against him;
in some cases his reputation for what was felicitously termed "gaiety"
seemed a special charm.
But here, against the calm wisdom and quiet restrained humor
of these women, with only that blessed Jeff and my inconspicuous
self to compare with, Terry did stand out rather strong.
As "a man among men," he didn't; as a man among--I shall
have to say, "females," he didn't; his intense masculinity seemed
only fit complement to their intense femininity. But here he was
all out of drawing.
Moadine was a big woman, with a balanced strength that
Herland |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: a close and enormous chain, which girds and binds the human race.
To their minds it is not enough to show what events have
occurred: they would fain show that events could not have
occurred otherwise. They take a nation arrived at a certain
stage of its history, and they affirm that it could not but
follow the track which brought it thither. It is easier to make
such an assertion than to show by what means the nation might
have adopted a better course.
In reading the historians of aristocratic ages, and
especially those of antiquity, it would seem that, to be master
of his lot, and to govern his fellow-creatures, man requires only
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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 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: Natasha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the
society of her relatives- Countess Mary, and her brother, her
mother, and Sonya. She valued the company of those to whom she could
come striding disheveled from the nursery in her dressing gown, and
with joyful face show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby's
napkin, and from whom she could hear reassuring words to the effect
that baby was much better.
To such an extent had Natasha let herself go that the way she
dressed and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy-
she was jealous of Sonya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty
or plain- were habitual subjects of jest to those about her. The
War and Peace |
