| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: And new replenished pendants cuff the air
And beat the winds, that for their gaudiness
Struggles to kiss them: on our left hand lies
Phillip, the younger issue of the king,
Coating the other hill in such array,
That all his guilded upright pikes do seem
Straight trees of gold, the pendants leaves;
And their device of Antique heraldry,
Quartered in colours, seeming sundry fruits,
Makes it the Orchard of the Hesperides:
Behind us too the hill doth bear his height,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: natural, and his relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly
visits on Sundays from one to four o'clock, to which, however, he
tried to put a stop by saying: "Don't come and see me unless you want
something."
The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over
serious cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not
serve as a physician in the little hospital of Nemours, and declared
that he no longer practiced his profession.
"I've killed enough people," he said, laughing, to the Abbe Chaperon,
who, knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor.
"He's an original!" These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the
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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 The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: was indeed a gallant spirit, to ride foremost in the ranks of war;
but after the battle, in the days of peace and in the circle of his
trusted friends, that mind, it was to be dreaded, would continue to
bring forth the fruits of death.
CHAPTER III - THE BATTLE OF SHOREBY (Concluded)
Dick, once more left to his own counsels, began to look about him.
The arrow-shot had somewhat slackened. On all sides the enemy were
falling back; and the greater part of the market-place was now left
empty, the snow here trampled into orange mud, there splashed with
gore, scattered all over with dead men and horses, and bristling
thick with feathered arrows.
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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 Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: day or two."
Mr Verloc calmed down, and, with resolution imprinted on his pale
face, had already opened the door, when his wife called him back in
a whisper:
"Adolf! Adolf!" He came back startled. "What about that money
you drew out?" she asked. "You've got it in your pocket? Hadn't
you better - "
Mr Verloc gazed stupidly into the palm of his wife's extended hand
for some time before he slapped his brow.
"Money! Yes! Yes! I didn't know what you meant."
He drew out of his breast pocket a new pigskin pocket-book. Mrs
The Secret Agent |
