| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: "We've not got a quarter of an hour more to go. You see that church
behind the trees down there?"
Then she continued:
"Do you know, it appears the owner of the Chateau de Chamont is an
old lady of Napoleon's time? Oh, SHE was a merry one! At least, so
Joseph told me, and he heard it from the servants at the bishop's
palace. There's no one like it nowadays, and for the matter of
that, she's become goody-goody."
"What's her name?" asked Lucy.
"Madame d'Anglars."
"Irma d'Anglars--I knew her!" cried Gaga.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: tenderness; then the First Politician murmured, "God's will be
done! Since we cannot hope for reward, let us be content with what
we have."
And lifting their right hands from the public treasury they swore
to be content.
The Fugitive Office
A TRAVELLER arriving at the capitol of the nation saw a vast plain
outside the wall, filled with struggling and shouting men. While
he looked upon the alarming spectacle an Office broke away from the
Throng and took shelter in a tomb close to where he stood, the
crowd being too intent upon hammering one another to observe that
Fantastic Fables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: darkness about him. He is like all the ministers who have succeeded
one another in France since the Charter. A woman with principles could
not have fallen into better hands. It is certainly a great thing for a
virtuous woman to have married a man incapable of follies.
Occasionally some fops have been sufficiently impertinent to press the
hand of the marquise while dancing with her. They gained nothing in
return but contemptuous glances; all were made to feel the shock of
that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost, destroys the
germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, men whose sentiments
are fed by sucking their canes, those of a great name, or a great
fame, those of the highest or the lowest rank in her own world, they
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: floor of silver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic,
and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely
unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement
of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat.
His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole
countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my
hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his
whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw
that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if
unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at
length drank in the hideous import of his words.
The Fall of the House of Usher |
