| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: youth that he leads us back to the prairie-land of our illusions. We
can be pitiless to the eagles, requiring from them the quality of the
diamond, incorruptible perfection; but as for Canalis, we take him for
what he is and let the rest go. He seems a good fellow; the
affectations of the angelic school have answered his purpose and
succeeded, just as a woman succeeds when she plays the ingenue
cleverly, and simulates surprise, youth, innocence betrayed, in short,
the wounded angel.
Modeste, recovering her first impression, renewed her confidence in
that soul, in that countenance as ravishing as the face of Bernadin de
Saint-Pierre. She paid no further attention to the publisher. And so,
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: hills. This was prettily named the Isiola, and, after the first
mile or so, was not big enough to afford the luxury of a jungle
of its own. Its banks were generally grassy and steep, its
thickets few, and its little trees isolated in parklike spaces.
To either side of it, and almost at its level, stretched plains,
but plains grown with scattered brush and shrubs so that at a
mile or two one's vista was closed. But for all its scant ten
feet of width the Isiola stood upon its dignity as a stream. We
discovered that when we tried to cross. The men floundered
waist-deep on uncertain bottom; the syces received much
unsympathetic comment for their handling of the animals, and we
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: in gloomy confidence. "I get them every once in a while--
as if some vicious planet or other was crossing in front
of my good star--and then I'm a caution to snakes.
I shut myself up--that's the only thing to do--and have it
out with myself I didn't know but the organ-music would
calm me down, but it hasn't. I shan't sleep a wink tonight,
but just rage around from one room to another,
piling all the cushions from the divans on to the floor,
and then kicking them away again. Do YOU ever have fits
like that?"
Theron was able to reply with a good conscience in
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
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 Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: cottagers and labourers, with their wives and children, who are
beggars in effect; I desire those politicians who dislike my
overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that
they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they
would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been
sold for food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, and
thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes, as
they have since gone through, by the oppression of landlords, the
impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of
common sustenance, with neither house nor cloaths to cover them
from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable
A Modest Proposal |
