| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: had returned six months before, to serve as a testament in case of
death and as a deed of gift in case of disappearance; but in place
of the name of Edward Hyde, the lawyer, with indescribable
amazement read the name of Gabriel John Utterson. He looked at
Poole, and then back at the paper, and last of all at the dead
malefactor stretched upon the carpet.
"My head goes round," he said. "He has been all these days in
possession; he had no cause to like me; he must have raged to see
himself displaced; and he has not destroyed this document."
He caught up the next paper; it was a brief note in the
doctor's hand and dated at the top. "O Poole!" the lawyer cried,
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: slow; bothered by too many horses, not looking for pursuit; were
never pursued, could be headed and ambushed that night at the first
waterhole, a natural trap in a valley.
The men returned to the ranch. The rangers ate and drank while
making hurried preparations for travel. Blanco Sol and the cowboys'
horses were fed, watered, and saddled. Ladd again refused to ride
one of Belding's whites. He was quick and cold.
"Get me a long-range rifle an' lots of shells. Rustle now," he
said.
"Laddy, you don't want to be weighted down?" protested Belding.
"Shore I want a gun that'll outshoot the dinky little carbines an'
Desert Gold |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: faces, as in those of the Countess and his friend Martial, the secrets
of their agitation; and then, looking round, he wondered what
connection there could be between the gloomy looks of the Comte de
Soulanges, still seated on the sofa, and the plaintive expression of
the fair unknown, on whose features the joys of hope and the anguish
of involuntary dread were alternately legible. Montcornet stood like
the king of the feast. In this moving picture he saw a complete
presentment of the world, and he laughed at it as he found himself the
object of inviting smiles from a hundred beautiful and elegant women.
A Colonel of the Imperial Guard, a position equal to that of a
Brigadier-General, was undoubtedly one of the best matches in the
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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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: supposed to give to the thing a special value in the provinces.
Thus, when he returned to Paris in the intervals of his triumphant
progress through France, he lived a life of perpetual festivity in the
shape of weddings and suppers. When he was in the provinces, the
correspondents in the smaller towns made much of him; in Paris, the
great houses feted and caressed him. Welcomed, flattered, and fed
wherever he went, it came to pass that to breakfast or to dine alone
was a novelty, an event. He lived the life of a sovereign, or, better
still, of a journalist; in fact, he was the perambulating "feuilleton"
of Parisian commerce.
His name was Gaudissart; and his renown, his vogue, the flatteries
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