| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: far better match than the enterprising lawyer, and she was the first,
on seeing the Phellion father and mother arrive without the son, to
express regret at his absence. Brigitte, however, was not the only one
to feel the injury that the luckless professor was doing to his
prospects in thus keeping away from her reception. Madame Thuillier,
with simple candor, and Celeste with feigned reserve, both made
manifest their displeasure. As for Madame de Godollo, who, in spite of
a very remarkable voice, usually required much pressing before she
would sing (the piano having been opened since her reign began), she
now went up to Madame Phellion and asked her to accompany her, and
between two verses of a song she said in her ear:--
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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 Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: apparent in the dead silence of the room. He snuffled
apologetically, and added: "I've been to the bank."
Mrs Verloc became attentive.
"You have!" she said dispassionately. "What for?"
Mr Verloc mumbled, with his nose over the grate, and with marked
unwillingness.
"Draw the money out!"
"What do you mean? All of it?"
"Yes. All of it."
Mrs Verloc spread out with care the scanty table-cloth, got two
knives and two forks out of the table drawer, and suddenly stopped
The Secret Agent |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: chipping and moulding figures,--hideous, fantastic enough, but
sometimes strangely beautiful: even the mill-men saw that,
while they jeered at him. It was a curious fancy in the man,
almost a passion. The few hours for rest he spent hewing and
hacking with his blunt knife, never speaking, until his watch
came again,--working at one figure for months, and, when it was
finished, breaking it to pieces perhaps, in a fit of
disappointment. A morbid, gloomy man, untaught, unled, left to
feed his soul in grossness and crime, and hard, grinding labor.
I want you to come down and look at this Wolfe, standing there
among the lowest of his kind, and see him just as he is, that
Life in the Iron-Mills |
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 House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: finish of life; there were others when they gave a sharper edge
to the meagreness of her own opportunities. This was one of the
moments when the sense of contrast was uppermost, and she turned
away impatiently as Mrs. George Dorset, glittering in serpentine
spangles, drew Percy Gryce in her wake to a confidential nook
beneath the gallery.
It was not that Miss Bart was afraid of losing her newly-acquired
hold over Mr. Gryce. Mrs. Dorset might startle or dazzle him, but
she had neither the skill nor the patience to effect his capture.
She was too self-engrossed to penetrate the recesses of his
shyness, and besides, why should she care to give herself the
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