| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: mortification like this only proved Madame Claes's powerlessness and
humiliated the feelings by which she lived. She was ignorant; and she
had reached a point where her ignorance parted her from her husband.
Worse than all, last and keenest torture, he was risking his life, he
was often in danger--near her, yet far away, and she might not share,
nor even know, his peril. Her position became, like hell, a moral
prison from which there was no issue, in which there was no hope.
Madame Claes resolved to know at least the outward attractions of this
fatal science, and she began secretly to study chemistry in the books.
From this time the family became, as it were, cloistered.
Such were the successive changes brought by this dire misfortune upon
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the
profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary
sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified--that it
infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain
degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive
superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night
of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady
Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of
such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch--while the hours
waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: "Well," cried the audience, "and what happened?"
"I will tell you in a few words--for this is not romance--it is
history."
We saw no more of Marcas. The administration lasted for three months;
it fell at the end of the session. Then Marcas came back to us, worked
to death. He had sounded the crater of power; he came away from it
with the beginnings of brain fever. The disease made rapid progress;
we nursed him. Juste at once called in the chief physician of the
hospital where he was working as house-surgeon. I was then living
alone in our room, and I was the most attentive attendant; but care
and science alike were in vain. By the month of January, 1838, Marcas
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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 The American by Henry James: He seemed oppressed by a humiliating sense of having been overpaid,
and wished apparently to redeem his debt by the offer of
grammatical and statistical information in small installments.
He wore the same decently melancholy aspect as a few months before;
a few months more or less of brushing could make little
difference in the antique lustre of his coat and hat.
But the poor old man's spirit was a trifle more threadbare;
it seemed to have received some hard rubs during the summer
Newman inquired with interest about Mademoiselle Noemie;
and M. Nioche, at first, for answer, simply looked at him
in lachrymose silence.
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