| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: Where your cool radiance fell?
Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,
His fierce beams struck my brow;
The soul of nature sprang, elate,
But mine sank sad and low!
My lids closed down, yet through their veil
I saw him, blazing, still,
And steep in gold the misty dale,
And flash upon the hill.
I turned me to the pillow, then,
To call back night, and see
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Koran: although they could not outstrip us!
And each of them we seized in his sin; and of them were some against
whom we sent a sandstorm; and of them were some whom the noise seized;
and of them were some with whom we cleaved the earth open; and of them
were some we drowned: God would not have wronged them, but it was
themselves they wronged.
The likeness of those who take, beside God, patrons is as the
likeness of a spider, that takes to himself a house; and, verily,
the weakest of houses is a spider's house, if they did but know!
Verily, God knows whatever thing they call upon beside Him; for He
is the mighty, wise.
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: great devotee of Monsignor's.
He called her on the 'phone one day. Yes, she remembered him
perfectly; no, Monsignor wasn't in town, was in Boston she
thought; he'd promised to come to dinner when he returned.
Couldn't Amory take luncheon with her?
"I thought I'd better catch up, Mrs. Lawrence," he said rather
ambiguously when he arrived.
"Monsignor was here just last week," said Mrs. Lawrence
regretfully. "He was very anxious to see you, but he'd left your
address at home."
"Did he think I'd plunged into Bolshevism?" asked Amory,
This Side of Paradise |
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 Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: Mme. de Beauseant had fair hair and dark eyes, and the pale complexion
that belongs to fair hair. She held up her brow nobly like some fallen
angel, grown proud through the fall, disdainful of pardon. Her way of
gathering her thick hair into a crown of plaits above the broad,
curving lines of the bandeaux upon her forehead, added to the
queenliness of her face. Imagination could discover the ducal coronet
of Burgundy in the spiral threads of her golden hair; all the courage
of her house seemed to gleam from the great lady's brilliant eyes,
such courage as women use to repel audacity or scorn, for they were
full of tenderness for gentleness. The outline of that little head, so
admirably poised above the long, white throat, the delicate, fine
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