| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: happy, to give him the sense of a sheltered home by dint of such
economy and method as are familiar to provincial folks. Thus Dinah
became a housekeeper, as she had become a poet, by the soaring of her
soul towards the heights.
"His happiness will be my absolution."
These words, wrung from Madame de la Baudraye by her friend the
lawyer, accounted for the existing state of things. The publicity of
his triumph, flaunted by Etienne on the evening of the first
performance, had very plainly shown the lawyer what Lousteau's purpose
was. To Etienne, Madame de la Baudraye was, to use his own phrase, "a
fine feather in his cap." Far from preferring the joys of a shy and
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: wear his suit, he was tempted and nearly gave way to the temptation
just to fumble off one little bit of tissue paper and see if indeed
the buttons were keeping as bright as ever.
He went trimly along on his way to church full of this wild
desire. For you must know his mother did, with repeated and
careful warnings, let him wear his suit at times, on Sundays, for
example, to and fro from church, when there was no threatening of
rain, no dust nor anything to injure it, with its buttons covered
and its protections tacked upon it and a sunshade in his hand to
shadow it if there seemed too strong a sunlight for its colours.
And always, after such occasions, he brushed it over and folded it
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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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: Sometimes a passing band of hostile warriors, with blackened faces,
would peer in at us through the open windows, and often we were
forced to pause until the strangely savage, monotonous noise of the
native drums had ceased; but no Samoan, nor, I trust, white person,
changed his reverent attitude. Once, I remember a look of
surprised dismay crossing the countenance of Tusitala when my son,
contrary to his usual custom of reading the next chapter following
that of yesterday, turned back the leaves of his Bible to find a
chapter fiercely denunciatory, and only too applicable to the
foreign dictators of distracted Samoa. On another occasion the
chief himself brought the service to a sudden check. He had just
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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 Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
The Waste Land |
