| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: for Havre. An hour later he was travelling post to Paris, with the
haste that nothing but passion or speculation can get out of wheels.
Recovering herself under Modeste's tender care, Madame Mignon went up
to her bedroom leaning on the arm of her daughter, to whom she said,
as her sole reproach, when they were alone:--
"My unfortunate child, see what you have done! Why did you conceal
anything from me? Am I so harsh?"
"Oh! I was just going to tell it to you comfortably," sobbed Modeste.
She thereupon related everything to her mother, read her the letters
and their answers, and shed the rose of her poem petal by petal into
the heart of the kind German woman. When this confidence, which took
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: requested the Empress Dowager to select a suitable person who
should be proclaimed as the successor of Tung Chih, his
predecessor, thus turning himself out of the imperial line. That
this could not have been her choice is evidenced, further, by the
fact that just as soon as she had once more regained her power,
she surrounded herself with progressive officials, turned out all
the great conservatives except Jung Lu, and dispossessing the son
of Prince Tuan, at the time of her death selected her sister's
grandchild and proclaimed him successor to her son and heir to
the Emperor Kuang Hsu, in the following edict:
"Inasmuch as the Emperor Tung Chih had no issue, on the fifth day
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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 Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: shalt say, that, whatever was the life of Ulrica,
her death well became the daughter of the noble
Torquil. There is a force without beleaguering
this accursed castle---hasten to lead them to the attack,
and when thou shalt see a red flag wave from
the turret on the eastern angle of the donjon, press
the Normans hard---they will then have enough to
do within, and you may win the wall in spite both
of bow and mangonel.---Begone, I pray thee---follow
thine own fate, and leave me to mine.''
Cedric would have enquired farther into the purpose
Ivanhoe |
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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: BASTARD.
Mine was secure.
REIGNIER.
And so was mine, my lord.
CHARLES.
And, for myself, most part of all this night,
Within her quarter and mine own precinct
I was employ'd in passing to and fro,
About relieving of the sentinels:
Then how or which way should they first break in?
PUCELLE.
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