| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: room and an oratory, in the tower which faced towards the forest. Soon
after she had left the salon the dogs barked, the bell of the small
gate rang, and Durieu rushed into the salon with a frightened face.
"Here is the mayor!" he said. "Something is the matter."
CHAPTER VI
A DOMICILIARY VISIT
The mayor, a former huntsman of the house of Simeuse, came
occasionally to the chateau, where the d'Hauteserres showed him out of
policy, a deference to which he attached great value. His name was
Goulard; he had married a rich woman of Troyes, whose property, which
was in the commune of Cinq-Cygne, he had further increased by 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 The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: You ARE a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot --
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. 170
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
The Waste Land |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: as scarce more nearly concerned with it than if there had been a
thousand others. He was in short from this moment face to face
with the fact that he was to profit extraordinarily little by the
interest May Bartram had taken in him. He couldn't quite have said
what he expected, but he hadn't surely expected this approach to a
double privation. Not only had her interest failed him, but he
seemed to feel himself unattended--and for a reason he couldn't
seize--by the distinction, the dignity, the propriety, if nothing
else, of the man markedly bereaved. It was as if, in the view of
society he had not BEEN markedly bereaved, as if there still failed
some sign or proof of it, and as if none the less his character
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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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: native town with an artist on his way to Brittany. She wanted to see
Fougeres, where the adventure of the Marquis de Montauran culminated,
and to stand upon the scene of that picturesque war, the tragedies of
which, still so little known, had filled her childish mind. Besides
this, she had a fancy to pass through Alencon so elegantly equipped
that no one could recognize her; to put her mother above the reach of
necessity, and also to send to poor Athanase, in a delicate manner, a
sum of money,--which in our age is to genius what in the middle ages
was the charger and the coat of mail that Rebecca conveyed to Ivanhoe.
One month passed away in the strangest uncertainties respecting the
marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon. A party of unbelievers denied the
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