| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: weighed and the change she gave, equally unconscious and unerring
in each of these particulars, and not, as the run on the little
office thickened with the afternoon hours, looking up at a single
ugly face in the long sequence, nor really hearing the stupid
questions that she patiently and perfectly answered. All patience
was possible now, all questions were stupid after his, all faces
were ugly. She had been sure she should see the lady again; and
even now she should perhaps, she should probably, see her often.
But for him it was totally different; she should never never see
him. She wanted it too much. There was a kind of wanting that
helped--she had arrived, with her rich experience, at that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: solemn and lonely--after my great happiness--with
nothing but the sky above my face. it seems as if
there were no folk in the world but we two; and I wish
there were not--except 'Liza-Lu."
Clare though she might as well rest here till it should
get a little lighter, and he flung his overcoat upon
her, and sat down by her side.
"Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over
'Liza-Lu for my sake?" she asked, when they had
listened a long time to the wind among the pillars.
"I will."
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: At the end you come to a second gateway, a Gothic archway covered with
simple ornament, now crumbling into ruin and overgrown with
wildflowers--moss and ivy, wallflowers and pellitory. Every stone wall
on the hillside is decked with this ineradicable plant-life, which
springs up along the cracks afresh with new wreaths for every time of
year.
The worm-eaten gate gives into a little garden, a strip of turf, a few
trees, and a wilderness of flowers and rose bushes--a garden won from
the rock on the highest terrace of all, with the dark, old balustrade
along its edge. Opposite the gateway, a wooden summer-house stands
against the neighboring wall, the posts are covered with jessamine and
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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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: that night of which the delights had been poured upon him by degrees
until they had ended by flooding him in torrents. He could read, at
last, that page in effect so brilliant, divine its hidden meaning. The
purely physical innocence of Paquita, the bewilderment of her joy,
certain words, obscure at first, but now clear, which had escaped her
in the midst of that joy, all proved to him that he had posed for
another person. As no social corruption was unknown to him, as he
professed a complete indifference towards all perversities, and
believed them to be justified on the simple ground that they were
capable of satisfaction, he was not startled at vice, he knew it as
one knows a friend, but he was wounded at having served as sustenance
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
