| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: remained alight. He did not notice the strange smile on the face of
his fair VIS-A-VIS, so intent was he on the work of destruction;
perhaps, had he done so, the look of relief would have faded from his
face. He watched the fateful note, as it curled under the flame.
Soon the last fragment fell on the floor, and he placed his heel upon
the ashes.
"And now, Sir Andrew," said Marguerite Blakeney, with the
pretty nonchalance peculiar to herself, and with the most winning of
smiles, "will you venture to excite the jealousy of your fair lady by
asking me to dance the minuet?"
CHAPTER XIII EITHER--OR?
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural
life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so
it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on
the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois,
the East on the West.
The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the
scattered state of the population, of the means of production,
and of property. It has agglomerated production, and has
concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence
of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but
loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws,
The Communist Manifesto |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: Apollo send him rimes hitherto undreamed of; may the river be no
longer scanty of her silver fishes to his lure; may the cold not
pinch him on long winter rides, nor the village jack-in-office
affront him with unseemly manners; and may he never miss
Mademoiselle Ferrario from his side, to follow with his dutiful
eyes and accompany on the guitar!
The marionnettes made a very dismal entertainment. They performed
a piece, called PYRAMUS AND THISBE, in five mortal acts, and all
written in Alexandrines fully as long as the performers. One
marionnette was the king; another the wicked counsellor; a third,
credited with exceptional beauty, represented Thisbe; and then
|
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 Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: They had rather a job to separate us, I've been told. A sufficiently
fierce story to make an old judge and a respectable jury sit up a bit.
The first thing I heard when I came to myself was the maddening
howling of that endless gale, and on that the voice of the old man.
He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face out of his sou'wester.
"`Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can act no longer
as chief mate of this ship.'"
His care to subdue his voice made it sound monotonous.
He rested a hand on the end of the skylight to steady himself with,
and all that time did not stir a limb, so far as I could see.
"Nice little tale for a quiet tea party," he concluded
The Secret Sharer |
