| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: and as they must at any time have been compared by her, had it--
oh! had it, by any blessed felicity, occurred to her, to institute
the comparison.--She saw that there never had been a time when she
did not consider Mr. Knightley as infinitely the superior, or when
his regard for her had not been infinitely the most dear. She saw,
that in persuading herself, in fancying, in acting to the contrary,
she had been entirely under a delusion, totally ignorant of her
own heart--and, in short, that she had never really cared for Frank
Churchill at all!
This was the conclusion of the first series of reflection.
This was the knowledge of herself, on the first question of inquiry,
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: A Boy
Out of the noise of tired people working,
Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead,
His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing,
Clean boyish beauty and high-held head.
Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them,
Fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes --
Men die by millions now, because God blunders,
Yet to have made this boy he must be wise.
Winter Dusk
I watch the great clear twilight
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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 Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: pleasant, animated discussions over the latest scandal; there were
chairs straight up in a row that still looked starchy, critical, acid,
like antiquated dowager; there were a few isolated, single chairs,
close to the table, that spoke of gourmands intent on the most
RECHERCHE dishes, and others overturned on the floor, that spoke
volumes on the subject of my Lord Grenville's cellars.
It was a ghostlike replica, in fact, of that fashionable
gathering upstairs; a ghost that haunts every house where balls and
good suppers are given; a picture drawn with white chalk on grey
cardboard, dull and colourless, now that the bright silk dresses and
gorgeously embroidered coats were no longer there to fill in the
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: days. A wound which might have injured his nose, cleft his forehead,
or scarred his cheek, would have destroyed one of the most beautiful
Italian faces which a woman ever dreamed of in all its delicate
proportions. This face, not unlike the type which Girodet has given to
the dying young Turk, in the "Revolt at Cairo," was instinct with that
melancholy by which all women are more or less duped.
The Marquis de Montefiore possessed an entailed property, but his
income was mortgaged for a number of years to pay off the costs of
certain Italian escapades which are inconceivable in Paris. He had
ruined himself in supporting a theatre at Milan in order to force upon
a public a very inferior prima donna, whom he was said to love madly.
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