| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: Fougeres glanced at Magus and said: "There's fat in it!" using a slang
term then much in vogue in the studios.
Hearing those words Monsieur Vervelle frowned. The worthy bourgeois
drew after him another complication of vegetables in the persons of
his wife and daughter. The wife had a fine veneer of mahogany on her
face, and in figure she resembled a cocoa-nut, surmounted by a head
and tied in around the waist. She pivoted on her legs, which were tap-
rooted, and her gown was yellow with black stripes. She proudly
exhibited unutterable mittens on a puffy pair of hands; the plumes of
a first-class funeral floated on an over-flowing bonnet; laces adorned
her shoulders, as round behind as they were before; consequently, 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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'For surely, sir - with your permeession -
Bricks here, sir, in the main parteetion. . . . '
The builder goggled, gulped, and stared,
The foreman's services were spared.
Thin would not count among his minions
A man of Wesleyan opinions.
'Money is money,' so he said.
'Crescents are crescents, trade is trade.
Pharaohs and emperors in their seasons
Built, I believe, for different reasons -
Charity, glory, piety, pride -
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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 Pupil by Henry James: see that they had not only lost their amiability but had ceased to
believe in themselves. He could also see that if Mrs. Moreen was
trying to get people to take her children she might be regarded as
closing the hatches for the storm. But Morgan would be the last
she would part with.
One winter afternoon - it was a Sunday - he and the boy walked far
together in the Bois de Boulogne. The evening was so splendid, the
cold lemon-coloured sunset so clear, the stream of carriages and
pedestrians so amusing and the fascination of Paris so great, that
they stayed out later than usual and became aware that they should
have to hurry home to arrive in time for dinner. They hurried
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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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: chair, put his head in his hands and his feet on the andirons, drying
his boots until he burned them. It was an awful moment,--one of those
moments in human life when the character is moulded, and the future
conduct of the best of men depends on the good or evil fortune of his
first action. Providence or fatality?--choose which you will.
This young man belonged to a good family, whose nobility was not very
ancient; but there are so few really old families in these days, that
all men of rank are ancient without dispute. His grandfather had
bought the office of counsellor to the Parliament of Paris, where he
afterwards became president. His sons, each provided with a handsome
fortune, entered the army, and through their marriages became attached
Ferragus |
