The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: of the latter occasionally turned up, but the communications that
passed before her bore now largely on rooms at hotels, prices of
furnished houses, hours of trains, dates of sailings and
arrangements for being "met"; she found them for the most part
prosaic and coarse. The only thing was that they brought into her
stuffy corner as straight a whiff of Alpine meadows and Scotch
moors as she might hope ever to inhale; there were moreover in
especial fat hot dull ladies who had out with her, to exasperation,
the terms for seaside lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the
matter of the number of beds required, which was not less
portentous: this in reference to places of which the names--
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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 Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: very troublesome fellows, these scholars."
Then, pointing with his finger towards the staircase, he
said to Rosa: "Just lead the way, Miss."
After this he locked the door and called out: "I shall be
with you directly, friend Jacob."
Poor Cornelius, thus left alone with his bitter grief,
muttered to himself, --
"Ah, you old hangman! it is me you have trodden under foot;
you have murdered me; I shall not survive it."
And certainly the unfortunate prisoner would have fallen ill
but for the counterpoise which Providence had granted to his
The Black Tulip |