| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: be crushed and killed by her early disappointment, the cold duty
of her first marriage, the dislocation of the heart's principles,
consequent on a second union, and the unkindness of her southern
husband, which had inevitably driven her to connect the idea of
his death with that of her comfort. To be brief, she was that
wisest, but unloveliest, variety of woman, a philosopher, bearing
troubles of the heart with equanimity, dispensing with all that
should have been her happiness, and making the best of what
remained. Sage in most matters, the widow was perhaps the more
amiable for the one frailty that made her ridiculous. Being
childless, she could not remain beautiful by proxy, in the person
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: hours, she calls them. She crossed the street with a hole in her
stocking. She had a hole in her stocking not because her uncle and
aunt were poor (they had around them never less than eight thousand
oranges, mostly in cases) but because she was then careless and
untidy and totally unconscious of her personal appearance. She
told me herself that she was not even conscious then of her
personal existence. She was a mere adjunct in the twilight life of
her aunt, a Frenchwoman, and her uncle, the orange merchant, a
Basque peasant, to whom her other uncle, the great man of the
family, the priest of some parish in the hills near Tolosa, had
sent her up at the age of thirteen or thereabouts for safe keeping.
The Arrow of Gold |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: on Venetian mirrors, on Brustolone, an Italian tenor who was the
Michael-Angelo of boxwood and holm oak; on the thirteenth, fourteenth,
fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, on the glazes of
Bernard de Palissy, the enamels of Petitot, the engravings of Albrecht
Durer--whom she called Dur; on illuminations on vellum, on Gothic
architecture, early decorated, flamboyant and pure--enough to turn an
old man's brain and fire a young man with enthusiasm.
Madame de la Baudraye, possessed with the idea of waking up Sancerre,
tried to form a so-called literary circle. The Presiding Judge,
Monsieur Boirouge, who happened to have a house and garden on his
hands, part of the Popinot-Chandier property, favored the notion of
The Muse of the Department |
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 A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "will you let me pass in peace or no?"
For reply he whipped out his own sword, calling to the
others to join him, and thus the four stood, with drawn
weapons, barring my further progress.
"You are not here by the order of Than Kosis," cried
the one who had first addressed me, "and not only shall
you not enter the apartments of the Princess of Helium but
you shall go back to Than Kosis under guard to explain
this unwarranted temerity. Throw down your sword; you
cannot hope to overcome four of us," he added with a grim
smile.
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