| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'And then?' asked Otto.
'O, then Kuno carried him home; and they were the best of friends
from that day forth. I don't say it's a discreditable story, you
observe,' continued Mr. Gottesheim; 'but it's droll, and that's the
fact. A man should think before he strikes; for, as my nephew says,
man to man was the old valuation.'
'Now, if you were to ask me,' said Otto, 'I should perhaps surprise
you. I think it was the Prince that conquered.'
'And, sir, you would be right,' replied Killian seriously. 'In the
eyes of God, I do not question but you would be right; but men, sir,
look at these things differently, and they laugh.'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: or even a province, but the little rural neighbourhood on the Mincio
where the poet was born. This was not a boast, but a hope,
at once bold and devoutly humble, that he might bring the Muse
(but lately come to Italy from her cloudy Grecian mountains),
not to the capital, the palatia Romana, but to his own little
I country'; to his father's fields, `sloping down to the river
and to the old beech trees with broken tops.'
Cleric said he thought Virgil, when he was dying at Brindisi,
must have remembered that passage. After he had faced the bitter
fact that he was to leave the `Aeneid' unfinished, and had decreed
that the great canvas, crowded with figures of gods and men,
My Antonia |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: JOHN.
"Oh, what does it all mean?" asked Eleonora, dropping the letter
in her lap.
"It is as I thought," replied Muller. "John Siders took his own
life, but made every arrangement to have suspicion fall upon
Graumann."
"But why? oh, why?"
"It was a terrible revenge. But perhaps - perhaps it was just
retribution. Graumaun would not understand that Siders could have
been suspected of, and imprisoned for, a theft he had not committed.
He must know now that it is quite possible for a man to be in danger
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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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: womanhood and ruler. Her features were more vivacious and
pleasing than they were really beautiful; her complexion was of
an olive tint, and her face illumined by orbs of jet half hidden
by dark lashes, behind which lurked the smiles of favour or the
lightning flashes of anger.
When seated upon the throne she was majesty itself, but the
moment she stepped down from the august seat, and took ones hand
in both of hers, saying with the most amiable of smiles: "What a
kind fate it is that has allowed you to come and see me again. I
hope you are not over-weary with the long journey," one felt that
she was, above all, a woman, a companion, a friend--yet for all
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