| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night--was declaimed
with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been
taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution.
When she leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines--
Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract to-night:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say, "It lightens." Sweet, good-night!
This bud of love by summer's ripening breath
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: he had eaten him on active service, while bearing up bravely
against the greatest military disaster of modern history, and, in
a manner, for the sake of his country. He had eaten him to
appease his hunger no doubt, but also for the sake of an
unappeasable and patriotic desire, in the glow of a great faith
that lives still, and in the pursuit of a great illusion kindled
like a false beacon by a great man to lead astray the effort of a
brave nation.
Pro patria!
Looked at in that light it appears a sweet and decorous meal.
And looked at in the same light my own diet of la vache enragee
Some Reminiscences |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: street-sweepers, beggars, occasionally insolent countesses, admired
actresses, applauded singers; she has even given, in the olden time,
two quasi-queens to the monarchy. Who can grasp such a Proteus? She is
all woman, less than woman, more than woman. From this vast portrait
the painter of manners and morals can take but a feature here and
there; the /ensemble/ is infinite.
She was a grisette of Paris; a grisette in all her glory; a grisette
in a hackney-coach,--happy, young, handsome, fresh, but a grisette; a
grisette with claws, scissors, impudent as a Spanish woman, snarling
as a prudish English woman proclaiming her conjugal rights, coquettish
as a great lady, though more frank, and ready for everything; a
Ferragus |
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 American by Henry James: "The operation doesn't take place every day."
"Well, your young men are very shabby, said Newman; "that's all I can say.
They ought to pay for your daughter, and not ask money themselves."
"Those are very noble ideas, monsieur; but what will you have?
They are not the ideas of this country. We want to know what we
are about when we marry."
"How big a portion does your daughter want?"
M. Nioche stared, as if he wondered what was coming next;
but he promptly recovered himself, at a venture, and replied that
he knew a very nice young man, employed by an insurance company,
who would content himself with fifteen thousand francs.
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