| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: another equal to her. So I forsook it and repaired to this mountain
fastness to spend the remainder of my life alone--to devote and
dedicate my remaining years to her memory."
"It's grand," said Miss Trenholme, "absolutely grand. I think a
hermit's life is the ideal one. No bill-collectors calling, no
dressing for dinner--how I'd like to be one! But there's no such luck
for me. If I don't marry this season I honestly believe mamma will
force me into settlement work or trimming hats. It isn't because I'm
getting old or ugly; but we haven't enough money left to butt in at
any of the swell places any more. And I don't want to marry--unless
it's somebody I like. That's why I'd like to be a hermit. Hermits
Options |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: instance."--He pointed to a woman cleaning a samovar near the well
in the centre of the Serai. She was flicking the water out of the
spout in regular cadenced jerks.
"There are ways and ways of cleaning samovars. If you knew why she
was doing her work in that particular fashion, you would know what
the Spanish Monk meant when he said--
'I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange-pulp--
In three sips the Aryan frustrate,
While he drains his at one gulp.--'
and many other things which now are hidden from your eyes. However,
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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 Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: cheerfulness on days serene, her resignation on stormy ones,--all
those variations of expression by which character is displayed depend,
like the effects in the sky, on unexpected and fugitive circumstances,
which have no connection with each other except the background against
which they rest, though all are necessarily mingled with the events of
this history,--truly a household epic, as great to the eyes of a wise
man as a tragedy to the eyes of the crowd, an epic in which you will
feel an interest, not only for the part I took in it, but for the
likeness that it bears to the destinies of so vast a number of women.
Everything at Clochegourde bore signs of a truly English cleanliness.
The room in which the countess received us was panelled throughout and
The Lily of the Valley |
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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: Shakespear's alleged Sycophancy and Perversion
That reply, which Mr Harris does not hesitate to give, is twofold:
first, that Shakespear was, in his attitude towards earls, a
sycophant; and, second, that the normality of Shakespear's sexual
constitution is only too well attested by the excessive susceptibility
to the normal impulse shewn in the whole mass of his writings. This
latter is the really conclusive reply. In the case of Michel Angelo,
for instance, one must admit that if his works are set beside those of
Titian or Paul Veronese, it is impossible not to be struck by the
absence in the Florentine of that susceptibility to feminine charm
which pervades the pictures of the Venetians. But, as Mr Harris
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