| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: replied.
The whole party walked on towards the vineyard with the feeling that
some serious event had happened. She had no wish to be alone with me.
Still, I was her guest.
"But about your horse? why isn't he attended to?" said the count.
"You see I am wrong if I think of him, and wrong if I do not,"
remarked the countess.
"Well, yes," said her husband; "there is a time to do things, and a
time not to do them."
"I will attend to him," I said, finding this sort of greeting
intolerable. "No one but myself can put him into his stall; my groom
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: disapprobation and surprise--then, finally, of terror, of horror,
and of disgust.
In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may
well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited
such sensation. In truth the masquerade licence of the night was
nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod,
and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum.
There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be
touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life
and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can
be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that
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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 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in
the forest beyond.
"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time
they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon
the gun; the smoke will apprise me -- the report arrives too
late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun."
Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round -- spinning
like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now
distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and
blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only;
circular horizontal streaks of color -- that was all he saw.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
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 Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: purple of face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air
with his hands. Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms
flung out amid the glass and silver of the table all spread with the
raitor's banquet to which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.
His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth
pausing a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved.
But Mr. Newlington answered, not their call, for he was dead.
CHAPTER XX
THE RECKONING
Ruth had sped home through the streets unattended, as she had come,
heedless of the rude jostlings and ruder greetings she met with from
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