| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: Jeannie, alarming no one,--being as chaste as our noble French
language requires, and as bold as the pencil of Gerard in his picture
of Daphnis and Chloe.
The bedroom of Madame Jules was a sacred plot. Herself, her husband,
and her maid alone entered it. Opulence has glorious privileges, and
the most enviable are those which enable the development of sentiments
to their fullest extent,--fertilizing them by the accomplishment of
even their caprices, and surrounding them with a brilliancy that
enlarges them, with refinements that purify them, with a thousand
delicacies that make them still more alluring. If you hate dinners on
the grass, and meals ill-served, if you feel a pleasure in seeing a
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:
Work Number of books
The Anabasis 7
The Hellenica 7
The Cyropaedia 8
The Memorabilia 4
The Symposium 1
The Economist 1
On Horsemanship 1
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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 Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: by a great roaring and pounding; then he looked out of window,
and saw the river in flood, with black waves spuming and
raving, like wood beasts, and driving before them great logs
and broken trees. Thus the river hurled and hammered at the
mill-dam so that it trembled, and the logs leaped as they
would spring over it, and the voice of Flumen shouted hoarsely
and hungrily, "Yet will I mar the Mill and have the Maid!"
Then Martimor ran with the miller out upon the dam, and
they laboured at the gates that held the river back, and
thrust away the logs that were heaped over them, and cut with
axes, and fought with the river. So at last two of the gates
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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 Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: and I begin with the earliest opportunity."
"I looked for you an hour ago. Ring the bell."
I rang it.
"Your mother is well, I suppose. She would have sent you, though,
had she been sick in bed."
"She has done so. She thinks better of my coming than I do."
The housekeeper, Mrs. Roll, came in, and Aunt Eliza politely
requested her to have breakfast for her niece as soon as possible.
"I do not go down of mornings yet," said Aunt Eliza, "but Mrs.
Roll presides. See that the coffee is good, Roll."
"It is good generally, Miss Huell."
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