| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the shrub that Proserpina had pulled up.
"Ha!" thought Mother Ceres, examining it by torchlight. "Here
is mischief in this flower! The earth did not produce it by any
help of mine, nor of its own accord. It is the work of
enchantment, and is therefore poisonous; and perhaps it has
poisoned my poor child."
But she put the poisonous flower in her bosom, not knowing
whether she might ever find any other memorial of Proserpina.
All night long, at the door of every cottage and farm-house,
Ceres knocked, and called up the weary laborers to inquire if
they had seen her child; and they stood, gaping and half-
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: clouds. There were moments when she seemed
actually to soar.
"She is a little genius!" thought Rezanov en-
thusiastically. "Anything could be made of a
woman like that."
It was not her dancing alone that interested him,
but its effect on her audience. The young men had
begun with audible expressions of approval. They
were now shouting and stamping and clapping.
Suddenly, as once more she danced back to the very
center of the room, her bosom heaving, her eyes
Rezanov |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: only taken such pains with details of contemporary manners as we take
in these days of analysis and description.
Mlle. Turquet, or Malaga, for she is better known by her pseudonym
(See /La fausse Maitresse/.), was one of the earliest parishioners of
that charming church. At the time to which this story belongs, that
lighthearted and lively damsel gladdened the existence of a notary
with a wife somewhat too bigoted, rigid, and frigid for domestic
happiness.
Now, it so fell out that one Carnival evening Maitre Cardot was
entertaining guests at Mlle. Turquet's house--Desroches the attorney,
Bixiou of the caricatures, Lousteau the journalist, Nathan, and
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: these counties; nay, of late, since the Union, even to Scotland
itself; for I must not omit here also to mention, that the river
Grant, or Cam, which runs close by the north-west side of the fair
in its way from Cambridge to Ely, is navigable, and that by this
means, all heavy goods are brought even to the fair-field, by water
carriage from London and other parts; first to the port of Lynn,
and then in barges up the Ouse, from the Ouse into the Cam, and so,
as I say, to the very edge of the fair.
In like manner great quantities of heavy goods, and the hops among
the rest, are sent from the fair to Lynn by water, and shipped
there for the Humber, to Hull, York, etc., and for Newcastle-upon-
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