| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: their faded features. Mademoiselle de Sombreuil was neither wife nor
maid; she was and ever will be a living poem. Mademoiselle Salomon de
Villenoix belonged to the race of these heroic beings. Her devotion
was religiously sublime, inasmuch as it won her no glory after being,
for years, a daily agony. Beautiful and young, she loved and was
beloved; her lover lost his reason. For five years she gave herself,
with love's devotion, to the mere mechanical well-being of that
unhappy man, whose madness she so penetrated that she never believed
him mad. She was simple in manner, frank in speech, and her pallid
face was not lacking in strength and character, though its features
were regular. She never spoke of the events of her life. But at times
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the
apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared.
I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with
dread--and yet I found it impossible to account for such
feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes
followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed
upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the
countenance of the brother--but he had buried his face in his
hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary
wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which
trickled many passionate tears.
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: Peter quietly from the house. "If you ever show yourself in my cottage
again, or even under the windows, look out, Peter, for, by heaven,
your black moustache will disappear; and your black locks, though
wound twice about your ears, will take leave of your pate, or my name
is not Terentiy Korzh." So saying, he gave him such a taste of his
fist in the nape of his neck, that all grew dark before Peter, and he
flew headlong out of the place.
So there was an end of their kissing. Sorrow fell upon our turtle
doves; and a rumour grew rife in the village that a certain Pole, all
embroidered with gold, with moustaches, sabre, spurs, and pockets
jingling like the bells of the bag with which our sacristan Taras goes
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
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: Somewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is;
But we will presently provide for them.
BURGUNDY.
I trust the ghost of Talbot is not there:
Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.
PUCELLE.
Of all base passions, fear is most accursed.
Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine,
Let Henry fret and all the world repine.
CHARLES.
Then on, my lords; and France be fortunate!
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