| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: out; but at four o'clock in the morning I was still awaiting him.
I have suffered deeply during these last three weeks, but that is
nothing, I think, in comparison with what I suffered that night.
Chapter 14
When I reached home I began to cry like a child. There is no man
to whom a woman has not been unfaithful, once at least, and who
will not know what I suffered.
I said to myself, under the weight of these feverish resolutions
which one always feels as if one had the force to carry out, that
I must break with my amour at once, and I waited impatiently for
daylight in order to set out forthwith to rejoin my father and my
Camille |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: lying February sunshine had done.
"But warmly you must dress yourself," Von Gerhard
warned me, "with no gauzy blouses or sleeveless gowns.
The air cuts like a knife, but it feels good against the
face. And a little road-house I know, where one is
served great steaming plates of hot oyster stew. How
will that be for a lark, yes?"
And so I had swathed myself in wrappings until I
could scarcely clamber into the panting little car, and
we had darted off along the smooth lake drives, while the
wind whipped the scarlet into our cheeks, even while it
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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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: regularly. One presentation, however, was permitted at Lyons, the
composer's native town, where I am told it made an extraordinary
impression. In order to give English readers some faint idea of the
world-wide effect of Wilde's drama, my friend Mr. Walter Ledger has
prepared a short bibliography of certain English and Continental
translations.
At the time of Wilde's trial the nearly completed MS. of La Sainte
Courtisane was entrusted to Mrs. Leverson, the well-known novelist,
who in 1897 went to Paris on purpose to restore it to the author.
Wilde immediately left the only copy in a cab. A few days later he
laughingly informed me of the loss, and added that a cab was a very
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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 1492 by Mary Johntson: lawyer and alertly provided the answer to his own question.
``Take locusts and give them leave to eat, being careful to
say, `This fellow's fields only!' But the locusts have wings
and their nature is to eat!''
The mountain robbers, if robbers they were, dined quietly,
the gaunt woman promptly and painstakingly serving them.
They were going to pay, I was sure, though it might not be
this noon.
The two friars seemed, quiet, simple men, dining as
dumbly as if they sat in Saint Francis's refectory. The
sometime alcalde and the shipmaster were the talkers, the
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