| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: blacklegging.
"A sex of blacklegging clients."
Her mind diverged to other aspects, and another type of
womanhood.
"Poor little Miniver! What can she be but what she is? . . .
Because she states her case in a tangle, drags it through swamps
of nonsense, it doesn't alter the fact that she is right."
That phrase about dragging the truth through swamps of nonsense
she remembered from Capes. At the recollection that it was his,
she seemed to fall through a thin surface, as one might fall
through the crust of a lava into glowing depths. She wallowed
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: -and all this without the charm of youth! I am glad to find Miss Vernon
does not accompany her mother to Churchhill, as she has not even manners to
recommend her; and, according to Mr. Smith's account, is equally dull and
proud. Where pride and stupidity unite there can be no dissimulation worthy
notice, and Miss Vernon shall be consigned to unrelenting contempt; but by
all that I can gather Lady Susan possesses a degree of captivating deceit
which it must be pleasing to witness and detect. I shall be with you very
soon, and am ever,
Your affectionate brother,
R. DE COURCY.
V
Lady Susan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: essentially the simple ancient man, the farmer and
landholder; he would have been content to watch the seasons
come and go, and his cattle increase, until the limit of age;
he would have been content at any time to die, if he could
have left the estates undiminished to an heir-male of his
ancestors, that duty standing first in his instinctive
calendar. And now he saw everywhere the image of the new
proprietor come to meet him, and go sowing and reaping, or
fowling for his pleasure on the red moors, or eating the very
gooseberries in the Place garden; and saw always, on the
other hand, the figure of Francis go forth, a beggar, into
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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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: the Academie would give me leave to dub such faces the lunar type. It
was like silver-gilt, with the gilt rubbed off. His hair was iron-
gray, sleek, and carefully combed; his features might have been cast
in bronze; Talleyrand himself was not more impassive than this money-
lender. A pair of little eyes, yellow as a ferret's, and with scarce
an eyelash to them, peered out from under the sheltering peak of a
shabby old cap, as if they feared the light. He had the thin lips that
you see in Rembrandt's or Metsu's portraits of alchemists and shrunken
old men, and a nose so sharp at the tip that it put you in mind of a
gimlet. His voice was so low; he always spoke suavely; he never flew
into a passion. His age was a problem; it was hard to say whether he
Gobseck |
