| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: their work in the coming heaven might be higher,--and ours, who
hear them. When the girl had finished reading, she went out into
the cool air. The Doctor passed her without notice. He went, in
his lumbering way, down the hill into the city; glad to go; the
trustful, waiting quiet oppressed, taunted him. It sent him back
more mad against Destiny, his heart more bitter in its great
pity. Let him go to the great city, with its stifling
gambling-hells, its negro-pens, its foul cellars;--his place and
work. If he stumble blindly against unconquerable ills, and die,
others have so stumbled and so died. Do you think their work is
lost?
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Honorine
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Second Home
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of the Department
The Imaginary Mistress
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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 Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: well-to-do, and have no wish to blight an imprudent man's character.
But du Croisier had no mind to slacken his hold until he knew what he
was about. He meditated until he fell asleep on the magnificent manner
in which his hopes would be fulfilled by the way of the Assize Court
or by marriage. The murmur of voices below, the lamentations of
Chesnel and Mme. du Croisier, sounded sweet in his ears.
Mme. du Croisier shared Chesnel's views of the d'Esgrignons. She was a
deeply religious woman, a Royalist attached to the noblesse; the
interview had been in every way a cruel shock to her feelings. She, a
staunch Royalist, had heard the roaring of that Liberalism, which, in
her director's opinion, wished to crush the Church. The Left benches
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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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: near half an hour with the young mistress of the house, who talked
pleasantly over her seam of the chestnut harvest, and the beauties
of the Tarn, and old family affections, broken up when young folk
go from home, yet still subsisting. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet
nature, with a country plainness and much delicacy underneath; and
he who takes her to his heart will doubtless be a fortunate young
man.
The valley below La Vernede pleased me more and more as I went
forward. Now the hills approached from either hand, naked and
crumbling, and walled in the river between cliffs; and now the
valley widened and became green. The road led me past the old
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