| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: The exquisite freshness of Isabel! When he had been a little boy, it was
his delight to run into the garden after a shower of rain and shake the
rose-bush over him. Isabel was that rose-bush, petal-soft, sparkling and
cool. And he was still that little boy. But there was no running into the
garden now, no laughing and shaking. The dull, persistent gnawing in his
breast started again. He drew up his legs, tossed the papers aside, and
shut his eyes.
"What is it, Isabel? What is it?" he said tenderly. They were in their
bedroom in the new house. Isabel sat on a painted stool before the
dressing-table that was strewn with little black and green boxes.
"What is what, William?" And she bent forward, and her fine light hair
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: called the "evil eye." Without the terrible power of Louis XI., which
was stretched like a mantle over that house, the populace, on the
slightest opportunity, would have demolished La Malemaison, that "evil
house" in the rue du Murier. And yet Cornelius had been the first to
plant mulberries in Tours, and the Touraineans at that time regarded
him as their good genius. Who shall reckon on popular favor!
A few seigneurs having met Maitre Cornelius on his journeys out of
France were surprised at his friendliness and good-humor. At Tours he
was gloomy and absorbed, yet always he returned there. Some
inexplicable power brought him back to his dismal house in the rue du
Murier. Like a snail, whose life is so firmly attached to its shell,
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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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: clothes behind.]
SOLDIER.
I 'll be so bold to take what they have left.
The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;
For I have loaden me with many spoils,
Using no other weapon but his name.
[Exit.]
SCENE II. Orleans. Within the town.
[Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundy, a Captain, and others.]
BEDFORD.
The day begins to break, and night is fled,
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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 Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: husband had fitted it with iron bars. I was in the bottom of a sack,
as it were.
" 'On the ground a woman was lying on a mat; her head was covered with
a muslin veil, but I could see her eyes through it full of tears and
flashing with the brightness of stars; she held a handkerchief in her
mouth, biting it so hard that her teeth were set in it: I never saw
finer limbs, but her body was writhing with pain like a harp-string
thrown on the fire. The poor creature had made a sort of struts of her
legs by setting her feet against a chest of drawers, and with both
hands she held on to the bar of a chair, her arms outstretched, with
every vein painfully swelled. She might have been a criminal
The Muse of the Department |
