| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: like birds of ill omen; it made me shudder to look at them. One spoke
of brain fever, the other saw nothing but an ordinary case of
convulsions in infancy. Our own country doctor seemed to me to have
the most sense, for he offered no opinion. "It's teething," said the
second doctor.--"Fever," said the first. Finally it was agreed to put
leeches on his neck and ice on his head. It seemed to me like death.
To look on, to see a corpse, all purple or black, and not a cry, not a
movement from this creature but now so full of life and sound--it was
horrible!
At one moment I lost my head, and gave a sort of hysterical laugh, as
I saw the pretty neck which I used to devour with kisses, with the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: "Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.
As when some heifer, seeking for her steer
Through woodland and deep grove, sinks wearied out
On the green sedge beside a stream, love-lorn,
Nor marks the gathering night that calls her home-
As pines that heifer, with such love as hers
May Daphnis pine, and I not care to heal.
"Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.
These relics once, dear pledges of himself,
The traitor left me, which, O earth, to thee
Here on this very threshold I commit-
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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 Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: It is thence that the marooners took their name, for marooning
was one of their most effective instruments of punishment or
revenge. If a pirate broke one of the many rules which governed
the particular band to which he belonged, he was marooned; did a
captain defend his ship to such a degree as to be unpleasant to
the pirates attacking it, he was marooned; even the pirate
captain himself, if he displeased his followers by the severity
of his rule, was in danger of having the same punishment visited
upon him which he had perhaps more than once visited upon
another.
The process of marooning was as simple as terrible. A suitable
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
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 Europeans by Henry James: with old-fashioned engravings, chiefly of scriptural subjects,
hung very high. This agreeable sense of solitude, of having the house
to herself, of which I have spoken, always excited Gertrude's imagination;
she could not have told you why, and neither can her humble historian.
It always seemed to her that she must do something particular--
that she must honor the occasion; and while she roamed about,
wondering what she could do, the occasion usually came to an end.
To-day she wondered more than ever. At last she took down a book;
there was no library in the house, but there were books in all the rooms.
None of them were forbidden books, and Gertrude had not stopped at
home for the sake of a chance to climb to the inaccessible shelves.
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