| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: interest in his presence (I must have had a mystical prevision of
Mrs. Weeks Wimbush) I should represent the interest in his work -
or otherwise expressed in his absence. These two interests were in
their essence opposed; and I doubt, as youth is fleeting, if I
shall ever again know the intensity of joy with which I felt that
in so good a cause I was willing to make myself odious.
One day in Sloane Street I found myself questioning Paraday's
landlord, who had come to the door in answer to my knock. Two
vehicles, a barouche and a smart hansom, were drawn up before the
house.
"In the drawing-room, sir? Mrs. Weeks Wimbush."
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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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: eloquent entreaties of all three to stay a little longer, and join
them in a walk round the garden, I tore myself away and returned to
my patient. I had not been absent five minutes, but he reproached
me bitterly for my levity and neglect. His friend espoused my
cause.
'Nay, nay, Huntingdon,' said he, 'you're too hard upon her; she
must have food and sleep, and a mouthful of fresh air now and then,
or she can't stand it, I tell you. Look at her, man! she's worn to
a shadow already.'
'What are her sufferings to mine?' said the poor invalid. 'You
don't grudge me these attentions, do you, Helen?'
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: together to the Beaux-Arts to see the exhibition of works which were
competing for the Grand Prix in sculpture? The subject given out for
competition was Niobe weeping for her children. Do you also remember
my indignation at one of the competing works around which the crowd
was so compact that we could scarcely approach it? The insolent youth
had dared to turn that sacred subject into jest! His Niobe was
infinitely touching in her beauty and grief, but to represent her
children, as he did, by monkeys squirming on the ground in the most
varied and grotesque attitudes, what a deplorable abuse of talent!--
You tried in vain to make me see that the monkeys were enchantingly
graceful and clever, and that a mother's blind idolatry could not be
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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 The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: my daughter is scarcely well enough for this exciting conversation,"
she added, calling attention to Madame Graslin, whose face was as
white as her sheets.
After that evening Mere Sauviat gave up her own home, and came, in
spite of her sixty-six years, to stay with her daughter and nurse her
through her confinement. She never left the room; Madame Graslin's
friends found the old woman always at the bed's head busy with her
eternal knitting,--brooding over Veronique as she did when the girl
had the small-pox, answering questions for her and often refusing to
admit visitors. The maternal and filial love of mother and daughter
was so well known in Limoges that these actions of Madame Sauviat
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