| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: will, Luther upset all Europe. Well, you'll make yourself famous; you
will do good things by the same means which he used to do evil things.
Haven't you said so yourself? For my part, I listen to you; I
understand you a great deal more than you think I do,--for I still
bear you in my bosom, and your every thought still stirs me as your
slightest motion did in other days."
"I shall never succeed here, mamma; and I don't want you to witness
the sight of my struggles, my misery, my anguish. Oh, mother, let me
leave Alencon! I want to suffer away from you."
"And I wish to be at your side," replied his mother, proudly. "Suffer
without your mother!--that poor mother who would be your servant if
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: are supposed to make History interesting; nor would I deny
that the strange mixture of the problems of life and the problems
of Mathematics, continually inducing conjecture and giving
the opportunity of immediate verification, imparts to our existence
a zest which you in Spaceland can hardly comprehend. I speak now
from the aesthetic and artistic point of view when I say that life
with us is dull; aesthetically and artistically, very dull indeed.
How can it be otherwise, when all one's prospect, all one's
landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life,
are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees of
brightness and obscurity?
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: And yet a little longer speak,
Calm this resentful mood;
And while the savage heart grows meek,
For other token do not seek,
But let the tear upon my cheek
Evince my gratitude!
THE OLD STOIC.
Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn:
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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 The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: dress, the panel of a bookcase, or an armchair.
The Marquis had the rooms painted in the rich brown tones loved of the
Dutch and of the citizens of Old Paris, hues which lend such good
effects to the painter of genre. The panels were hung with plain paper
in harmony with the paint. The window curtains were of inexpensive
materials, but chosen so as to produce a generally happy result; the
furniture was not too crowded and judiciously placed. Any one on going
into this home could not resist a sense of sweet peacefulness,
produced by the perfect calm, the stillness which prevailed, by the
unpretentious unity of color, the keeping of the picture, in the words
a painter might use. A certain nobleness in the details, the exquisite
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