| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: which were black with grime to the height of the tables. Here some
eighty persons, all in their Sunday best, tricked out with ribbons and
bunches of flowers, all of them on pleasure bent, were dancing away
with heated visages as if the world were about to come to an end.
Bride and bridegroom exchanged salutes to the general satisfaction,
amid a chorus of facetious "Oh, ohs!" and "Ah, ahs!" less really
indecent than the furtive glances of young girls that have been well
brought up. There was something indescribably infectious about the
rough, homely enjoyment in all countenances.
But neither the faces, nor the wedding, nor the wedding-guests have
anything to do with my story. Simply bear them in mind as the odd
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: England. In 1562, however, we find him characterised as "a
sole man by reason of the absence of his mother-in-law, Mrs.
Bowes," and a passport is got for her, her man, a maid, and
"three horses, whereof two shall return," as well as liberty
to take all her own money with her into Scotland. This looks
like a definite arrangement; but whether she died at
Edinburgh, or went back to England yet again, I cannot find.
With that great family of hers, unless in leaving her husband
she had quarrelled with them all, there must have been
frequent occasion for her presence, one would think. Knox at
least survived her; and we possess his epigraph to their long
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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 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
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 A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: " 'Very well, Charles, let us go,' said she.
"La Palferine, ferocious though he was, had tears in his eyes; but
what a look there was in Claudine's face, what a note in her voice! I
have seen nothing like the thing that followed, not even in the
supreme touch of a great actor's art; nothing to compare with her
movement when she saw the hard eyes softened in tears; Claudine sank
upon her knees and kissed La Palferine's pitiless hand. He raised her
with his grand manner, his 'Rusticoli air,' as he calls it--'There,
child!' he said, 'I will do something for you; I will put you--in my
will.'
"Well," concluded Nathan, "I ask myself sometimes whether du Bruel is
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