| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: and unsuspected power.
This young man held in his hand a sceptre more powerful than that of
modern kings, almost all of whom are curbed in their least wishes by
the laws. De Marsay exercised the autocratic power of an Oriental
despot. But this power, so stupidly put into execution in Asia by
brutish men, was increased tenfold by its conjunction with European
intelligence, with French wit--the most subtle, the keenest of all
intellectual instruments. Henri could do what he would in the interest
of his pleasures and vanities. This invisible action upon the social
world had invested him with a real, but secret, majesty, without
emphasis and deriving from himself. He had not the opinion which Louis
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: added: "You may turn out to have done, in bringing me this letter,
a thing you'll profoundly regret." My tone had a significance
which, I could see, did make her uneasy, and there was a moment,
after I had made two or three more remarks of studiously
bewildering effect, at which her eyes followed so hungrily the
little flourish of the letter with which I emphasised them that I
instinctively slipped Mr. Pudney's communication into my pocket.
She looked, in her embarrassed annoyance, capable of grabbing it to
send it back to him. I felt, after she had gone, as if I had
almost given her my word I wouldn't deliver the enclosure. The
passionate movement, at any rate, with which, in solitude, I
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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 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me. I was unwilling
to quit the sight of those that remained to me, and above all, I desired
to see my sweet Elizabeth in some degree consoled.
She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all.
She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and zeal.
She devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call her
uncle and cousins. Never was she so enchanting as at this time,
when she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us.
She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget.
The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last
evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit
Frankenstein |
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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of
his wings were pink and his breast was golden.
But he had the tiresome tricks of biting his perch, pulling his
feathers out, scattering refuse and spilling the water of his bath.
Madame Aubain grew tired of him and gave him to Felicite for good.
She undertook his education, and soon he was able to repeat: "Pretty
boy! Your servant, sir! I salute you, Marie!" His perch was placed
near the door and several persons were astonished that he did not
answer to the name of "Jacquot," for every parrot is called Jacquot.
They called him a goose and a log, and these taunts were like so many
dagger thrusts to Felicite. Strange stubbornness of the bird which
A Simple Soul |
