| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: Freinds, my Acquaintance and particularly to every affliction of
my own, was my only fault, if a fault it could be called. Alas!
how altered now! Tho' indeed my own Misfortunes do not make less
impression on me than they ever did, yet now I never feel for
those of an other. My accomplishments too, begin to fade--I can
neither sing so well nor Dance so gracefully as I once did--and I
have entirely forgot the MINUET DELA COUR.
Adeiu.
Laura.
LETTER 4th
Laura to MARIANNE
Love and Friendship |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: this one, I think. One may not attribute to this man a generous
indignation against the wrongs done the poor; one may not dignify
him with a generous impulse of any kind. When he saw his
photograph and said, "I shall be celebrated," he laid bare the
impulse that prompted him. It was a mere hunger for notoriety.
There is another confessed case of the kind which is as old as
history--the burning of the temple of Ephesus.
Among the inadequate attempts to account for the
assassination we must concede high rank to the many which have
described it as a "peculiarly brutal crime" and then added that
it was "ordained from above." I think this verdict will not be
What is Man? |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: impressed on the watery mirror. The whole tree itself is but one
leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening
earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils.
When the sun withdraws the sand ceases to flow, but in the
morning the streams will start once more and branch and branch again
into a myriad of others. You here see perchance how blood-vessels
are formed. If you look closely you observe that first there pushes
forward from the thawing mass a stream of softened sand with a
drop-like point, like the ball of the finger, feeling its way slowly
and blindly downward, until at last with more heat and moisture, as
the sun gets higher, the most fluid portion, in its effort to obey
Walden |
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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best
advantage by a /panier/ and a satin dress embroidered with blue
flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish
arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed
almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a
large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very
becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine,
disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her
without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and
discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice
trembled with love and fear and hope.
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