| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: bewilders me so to be hurried."
"I don't hear any one," said Wyant, listening. "Try to tell me."
"How can I make you understand? It would take so long to
explain." She drew a deep breath, and then with a plunge--"Will
you come here again this afternoon--at about five?" she
whispered.
"Come here again?"
"Yes--you can ask to see the picture,--make some excuse. He will
come with you, of course; I will open the door for you--and--and
lock you both in"--she gasped.
"Lock us in?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: (like so many other melancholic and uninterested persons) a
habit of gambling. An Austrian colonel--the same who
afterwards hanged himself at Monte Carlo--gave him a lesson
which lasted two-and-twenty hours, and left him wrecked and
helpless. Old Singleton once more repurchased the honour of
his name, this time at a fancy figure; and Norris was set afloat
again on stern conditions. An allowance of three hundred
pounds in the year was to be paid to him quarterly by a lawyer
in Sydney, New South Wales. He was not to write. Should he
fail on any quarter-day to be in Sydney, he was to be held for
dead, and the allowance tacitly withdrawn. Should he return to
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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 Purse by Honore de Balzac: into the details of this existence better than any one else would
have done. As he recognized the facts of his life as a child, the
kind young fellow felt neither scorn for disguised misfortune nor
pride in the luxury he had lately conquered for his mother.
"Well, monsieur, I hope you no longer feel the effects of your
fall," said the old lady, rising from an antique armchair that
stood by the chimney, and offering him a seat.
"No, madame. I have come to thank you for the kind care you gave
me, and above all mademoiselle, who heard me fall."
As he uttered this speech, stamped with the exquisite stupidity
given to the mind by the first disturbing symptoms of true love,
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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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: In the meantime, Monseigneur Bienvenu had advanced as quickly
as his great age permitted.
"Ah! here you are!" he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean.
"I am glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you
the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest,
and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs.
Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?"
Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop
with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of.
"Monseigneur," said the brigadier of gendarmes, "so what this man
said is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man
Les Miserables |
