| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: 'Even thus,' quoth she, 'he seized on my lips
And with her lips on his did act the seizure
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.
Ah, that I had my lady at this bay,
To kiss and clip me till I run away!
XII.
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together
Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare;
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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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: "Shall I tell you the fate to which you were hastening, poor angel of
love? Listen! It has been given to me to see immeasurable space,
bottomless gulfs in which all human creations are swallowed up, the
shoreless sea whither flows the vast stream of men and of angels. As I
made my way through the realms of eternal torment, I was sheltered
under the cloak of an immortal--the robe of glory due to genius, and
which the ages hand on--I, a frail mortal! When I wandered through the
fields of light where the happy souls play, I was borne up by the love
of a woman, the wings of an angel; resting on her heart, I could taste
the ineffable pleasures whose touch is more perilous to us mortals
than are the torments of the worser world.
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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 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs
and OEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His
chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an
exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic--the manual of
a forgotten church--the Vigiliae Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiae
Maguntinae.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work,
and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one
evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was
no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a
fortnight, (previously to its final interment), in one of the
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: a quantity of anecdotes on the reign of Louis XV. and the beginnings
of the Revolution. When these tales were heard for the first time,
they were held to be well narrated. He had, moreover, the great merit
of not repeating his personal bons mots and of never speaking of his
love-affairs, though his smiles and his airs and graces were
delightfully indiscreet. The worthy gentleman used his privilege as a
Voltairean noble to stay away from mass; and great indulgence was
shown to his irreligion because of his devotion to the royal cause.
One of his particular graces was the air and manner (imitated, no
doubt, from Mole) with which he took snuff from a gold box adorned
with the portrait of the Princess Goritza,--a charming Hungarian,
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