| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: laughing and taking his seat at table.
"I have been paying him compliments," Blanche went on.
"I have been telling him he looks so brilliant, so blooming--
as if something had happened to him, as if he had inherited
a fortune. He must have been doing something very wicked,
and he ought to tell us all about it, to amuse us.
I am sure you are a dreadful Parisian, Mr. Longueville.
Remember that we are three dull, virtuous people, exceedingly bored
with each other's society, and wanting to hear something
strange and exciting. If it 's a little improper, that won't
spoil it."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: he would now and then laugh for sympathy, but oftener respond with
a troubled, questioning look. If a tear--a maiden's sunshiny tear
over imaginary woe--dropped upon some melancholy page, Clifford
either took it as a token of actual calamity, or else grew
peevish, and angrily motioned her to close the volume. And
wisely too! Is not the world sad enough, in genuine earnest,
without making a pastime of mock sorrows?
With poetry it was rather better. He delighted in the swell and
subsidence of the rhythm, and the happily recurring rhyme. Nor
was Clifford incapable of feeling the sentiment of poetry,--not,
perhaps, where it was highest or deepest, but where it was most
House of Seven Gables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: CHARLES.
Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high terms;
Only this proof I 'll of thy valour make,
In single combat thou shalt buckle with me,
And if thou vanquishest, thy words are true;
Otherwise I renounce all confidence.
PUCELLE.
I am prepared: here is my keen-edg'd sword,
Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side,
The which at Touraine, in Saint Katharine's church-yard,
Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.
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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 Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: out of the town."
Whereupon the jailer, a sort of bear, trained to lock and
unlock the gates of the prison, had greeted him and admitted
him into the building, the doors of which were immediately
closed again.
Ten yards farther on, John de Witt met a lovely young girl,
of about seventeen or eighteen, dressed in the national
costume of the Frisian women, who, with pretty demureness,
dropped a curtesy to him. Chucking her under the chin, he
said to her, --
"Good morning, my good and fair Rosa; how is my brother?"
The Black Tulip |
