| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: The Archbishop of York is the second son of Lord Vernon, but his
uncle, Earl Harcourt, dying without children, left him all his
estate, upon which he took the name of Harcourt. We arrived about
four o'clock. . . . The dinner was at half-past seven, and when I
went down I found the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Caroline Leveson-
Gower, Lord Kildare, and several of the sons and daughters of the
Archbishop. The dinner and evening passed off very agreeably. The
Duchess is a most high-bred person, and thoroughly courteous. As we
were going in or out of a room instead of preceding me, which was
her right, she always made me take her arm, which was a delicate way
of getting over her precedence. . . . At half-past nine the [next
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Disguising what they are
Lady. You must leaue this
Macb. O, full of Scorpions is my Minde, deare Wife:
Thou know'st, that Banquo and his Fleans liues
Lady. But in them, Natures Coppie's not eterne
Macb. There's comfort yet, they are assaileable,
Then be thou iocund: ere the Bat hath flowne
His Cloyster'd flight, ere to black Heccats summons
The shard-borne Beetle, with his drowsie hums,
Hath rung Nights yawning Peale,
There shall be done a deed of dreadfull note
Macbeth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: months." Paul waited to see if he would tell him what the General
had told him in the afternoon and what Miss Fancourt, verbally at
least, of course hadn't. But as it didn't come out he at last put
the question.
"Is it true, the great news I hear - that you're to be married?"
"Ah you have heard it then?"
"Didn't the General tell you?" Paul asked.
The Master's face was wonderful. "Tell me what?"
"That he mentioned it to me this afternoon?"
"My dear fellow, I don't remember. We've been in the midst of
people. I'm sorry, in that case, that I lose the pleasure, myself,
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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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: soul, violently torn from the body and stormily shaken in presence of
the fulminating majesty of God, been rendered with such force. Before
that clamor of clamors all artists and their most passionate
compositions must bow humiliated. No, nothing can stand beside that
hymn, which sums all human passions, gives them a galvanic life beyond
the coffin, and leaves them, palpitating still, before the living and
avenging God. These cries of childhood, mingling with the tones of
older voices, including thus in the Song of Death all human life and
its developments, recalling the sufferings of the cradle, swelling to
the griefs of other ages in the stronger male voices and the quavering
of the priests,--all this strident harmony, big with lightning and
Ferragus |
