| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: at least to walk firmly before these German curs, and save the honor
of the Republic."
This address seemed to wake up Prosper Magnan, who rose and made a few
steps forward; but when the door was opened and he felt the fresh air
and saw the crowd before him, he staggered and his knees gave way
under him.
"This coward of a sawbones deserves a dozen deaths! Get on!" cried the
two soldiers who had him in charge, lending him their arms to support
him.
"There he is!--oh, the villain! the coward! Here he is! There he is!"
These cries seemed to be uttered by a single voice, the tumultuous
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: looked again, only the bare road lay there, yellow and wet. It
was over, now.
How long she sat there she did not know. She tried once or twice
to go to the house, but the lights seemed so far off that she
gave it up and sat quiet, unconscious, except of the damp
stone-wall her head leaned on, and the stretch of muddy road.
Some time, she knew not when, there was a heavy step beside her,
and a rough hand shook hers where she stooped, feebly tracing out
the lines of mortar between the stones. It was Knowles. She
looked up, bewildered.
"Hunting catarrhs, eh?" he growled, eying her keenly. "Got your
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: are ever on the look-out, even in church. Dutifully was Odalie
marched to the Cathedral every Sunday to mass, and Tante Louise,
nodding devoutly over her beads, could not see the blushes and
glances full of meaning, a whole code of signals as it were, that
passed between Odalie and Pierre, the impecunious young clerk in
the courtroom.
Odalie loved, perhaps, because there was not much else to do.
When one is shut up in a great French house with a grim sleepy
tante and no companions of one's own age, life becomes a dull
thing, and one is ready for any new sensation, particularly if in
the veins there bounds the tempestuous Spanish-French blood that
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
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 Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: I drew the king toward the other end of the hut and
whispered:
"Come -- now we can get to the road."
The king hesitated, was going to demur; but just
then we heard the door give way, and knew that those
desolate men were in the presence of their dead.
"Come, my liege! in a moment they will strike a
light, and then will follow that which it would break
your heart to hear."
He did not hesitate this time. The moment we were
in the road I ran; and after a moment he threw dig-
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
