| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: his animosity was, of course, Mimi, whose will had overcome his, but
it was obscured in greater or lesser degree by all who had opposed
him. Lilla was next to Mimi in his hate--Lilla, the harmless,
tender-hearted, sweet-natured girl, whose heart was so full of love
for all things that in it was no room for the passions of ordinary
life--whose nature resembled those doves of St. Columba, whose
colour she wore, whose appearance she reflected. Adam Salton came
next--after a gap; for against him Caswall had no direct animosity.
He regarded him as an interference, a difficulty to be got rid of or
destroyed. The young Australian had been so discreet that the most
he had against him was his knowledge of what had been. Caswall did
Lair of the White Worm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: seemed to his colleagues a form of aberration, had for five years been
watching legal results without seeing their causes. As he scrambled up
into the lofts, as he saw the poverty, as he studied the desperate
necessities which gradually bring the poor to criminal acts, as he
estimated their long struggles, compassion filled his soul. The judge
then became the Saint Vincent de Paul of these grown-up children,
these suffering toilers. The transformation was not immediately
complete. Beneficence has its temptations as vice has. Charity
consumes a saint's purse, as roulette consumes the possessions of a
gambler, quite gradually. Popinot went from misery to misery, from
charity to charity; then, by the time he had lifted all the rags which
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: great preacher; a wonderful scholar; but, more than all, a
daring traveller, a venturesome pilgrim, a priest of romance.
He had left his home and his fair estate in Wessex; he
would not stay in the rich monastery of Nutescelle, even
though they had chosen him as the abbot; he had refused a
bishopric at the court of King Karl. Nothing would content
him but to go out into the wild woods and preach to the
heathen.
Through the forests of Hesse and Thuringia, and along the
borders of Saxony, he had wandered for years, with a handful
of companions, sleeping under the trees, crossing mountains
|
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 Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: yet," continued he, surveying, with that look sometimes so
keen and sometimes so proud, the diminishing crowd, -- "and
yet, reflect a little, my good people, on what your king has
done, on what M. Monk has done, and then think what has been
done by this poor unknown, who is called M. d'Artagnan! It
is true you do not know him, since he is here unknown, and
that prevents your thinking about the matter! But, bah! what
matters it! All that does not prevent Charles II. from being
a great king, although he has been exiled twelve years, or
M. Monk from being a great captain, although he did make a
voyage to Holland in a box. Well, then, since it is admitted
Ten Years Later |
