| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: "The left," said he, "for I suppose you mean the truth or a fib."
"Well, then, I saw him," she said, speaking into the lawyer's ear.
"And as I saw him looking so sad, so out of heart, I said to myself,
Has he a cigar? Has he any money?"
"If you wish for the truth, I can tell it you," said the lawyer. "He
is living as a husband with Fanny Beaupre. You have forced me to tell
you this secret; I should never have told you, for you might have
suspected me perhaps of an ungenerous motive."
Madame de la Baudraye grasped his hand.
"Your husband," said she to her chaperon, "is one of the rarest souls!
--Ah! Why----"
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: up.
And it must be confessed that the sailor's arguments were reasonable.
Towards half-past one, the colonists embarked in the boat to visit the
wreck. It was to be regretted that the brig's two boats had not been saved;
but one, as has been said, had gone to pieces at the mouth of the Mercy,
and was absolutely useless; the other had disappeared when the brig went
down, and had not again been seen, having doubtless been crushed.
The hull of the "Speedy" was just beginning to issue from the water. The
brig was lying right over on her side, for her masts being broken, pressed
down by the weight of the ballast displaced by the shock, the keel was
visible along her whole length. She had been regularly turned over by the
The Mysterious Island |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: down beside the two dead men.
He had passed the lion but a short distance when his atten-
tion was called to the figure of a man lowering himself la-
boriously from the roof of a building upon the east side of the
thoroughfare. Tarzan's curiosity was aroused.
In the Alcove
As Smith-Oldwick realized that he was alone and practi-
cally defenseless in an enclosure filled with great lions
he was, in his weakened condition, almost in a state
verging upon hysterical terror. Clinging to the grating for
support he dared not turn his head in the direction of the
Tarzan the Untamed |
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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic: and waged that amazing series of fortnightly battles,
never missing victory, never failing at any point of the
complicated strategy, and crowning it all with a culminating
triumph which had been the wonder and admiration of the
whole financial world! A few score of menials or interested
inferiors bowed to him; he drove some good horses,
and was attentively waited upon, and had a never-failing
abundance of good things to eat and drink aud smoke.
Hardly anything more than that, when you came to think
of it--and the passing usufruct of all these things could
be enjoyed by any fool who had a ten-pound note in his
The Market-Place |
