| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: "I've never lost it."
"Then your manuscript--?"
"Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand." He hung
fire again. "A woman's. She has been dead these twenty years.
She sent me the pages in question before she died."
They were all listening now, and of course there was somebody
to be arch, or at any rate to draw the inference. But if he put
the inference by without a smile it was also without irritation.
"She was a most charming person, but she was ten years older
than I. She was my sister's governess," he quietly said.
"She was the most agreeable woman I've ever known in her position;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: consulting his uncle, Octave had lately sold an estate belonging to
him to the Black Band.[*] The chateau de Villaines would have been
pulled down were it not for the remonstrances which the old uncle made
to the representatives of the "Pickaxe company." To increase the old
man's wrath, a distant relative (one of those cousins of small means
and much astuteness about whom shrewd provincials are wont to remark,
"No lawsuits for me with him!") had, as it were by accident, come to
visit Monsieur de Bourbonne, and INCIDENTALLY informed him of his
nephew's ruin. Monsieur Octave de Camps, he said, having wasted his
means on a certain Madame Firmiani, was now reduced to teaching
mathematics for a living, while awaiting his uncle's death, not daring
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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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;
She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
VIII.
If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.
Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
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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 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: "Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon
acquaintance."
"Indeed!" cried Mr. Wickham with a look which did not escape
her. "And pray, may I ask?-- " But checking himself, he added,
in a gayer tone, "Is it in address that he improves? Has he
deigned to add aught of civility to his ordinary style?-- for I dare
not hope," he continued in a lower and more serious tone, "that
he is improved in essentials."
"Oh, no!" said Elizabeth. "In essentials, I believe, he is very
much what he ever was."
While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing
Pride and Prejudice |
