| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: all by itself."
"Plenty. Plenty. Only he wasn't guilty of it."
"How you talk! Not guilty of it! Everybody knows he WAS guilty."
"Mary, I give you my word--he was innocent."
"I can't believe it and I don't. How do you know?"
"It is a confession. I am ashamed, but I will make it. I was the
only man who knew he was innocent. I could have saved him, and--
and--well, you know how the town was wrought up--I hadn't the pluck
to do it. It would have turned everybody against me. I felt mean,
ever so mean; ut I didn't dare; I hadn't the manliness to face
that."
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: de la Haye was beginning to raise surmises of disquieting mysteries;
it was thought, in spite of some impossible discrepancies in dates,
that Francoise de la Haye bore a striking likeness to Francis du
Hautoy.
When "Jacques" was shooting in the neighborhood, people used to
inquire after Francis, and Jacques would discourse on his steward's
little ailments, and talk of his wife in the second place. So curious
did this blindness seem in a man of jealous temper, that his greatest
friends used to draw him out on the topic for the amusement of others
who did not know of the mystery. M. du Hautoy was a finical dandy
whose minute care of himself had degenerated into mincing affectation
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: simplicity, are characters of a secluded people. Mankind -
and, above all, islanders - come very swiftly to a bearing,
and find very readily, upon one convention or another, a
tolerable corporate life. The danger is to those from
without, who have not grown up from childhood in the islands,
but appear suddenly in that narrow horizon, life-sized
apparitions. For these no bond of humanity exists, no feeling
of kinship is awakened by their peril; they will assist at a
shipwreck, like the fisher-folk of Lunga, as spectators, and
when the fatal scene is over, and the beach strewn with dead
bodies, they will fence their fields with mahogany, and, after
|
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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand
disarmed amidst a throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up. How if I
went now to Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before
he slept, and made a full submission? Who could blame me? Not Stewart
the Writer; I had but to say that I was followed, despaired of getting
clear, and so gave in. Not Catriona: here, too, I had my answer
ready; that I could not bear she should expose her father. So, in a
moment, I could lay all these troubles by, which were after all and
truly none of mine; swim clear of the Appin Murder; get forth out of
hand-stroke of all the Stewarts and Campbells, all the Whigs and
Tories, in the land; and live henceforth to my own mind, and be able to
|
