| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: mortal. The one thing Shakespear's passion for the Dark Lady was not,
was what Mr Harris in one passage calls it: idolatrous. If it had
been, she might have been able to stand it. The man who "dotes yet
doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves," is tolerable even by a spoilt
and tyrannical mistress; but what woman could possibly endure a man
who dotes without doubting; who _knows_, and who is hugely amused at
the absurdity of his infatuation for a woman of whose mortal
imperfections not one escapes him: a man always exchanging grins with
Yorick's skull, and inviting "my lady" to laugh at the sepulchral
humor of the fact that though she paint an inch thick (which the Dark
Lady may have done), to Yorick's favor she must come at last. To the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: either, and my gun was useless if I could not shut it to use the other
barrel. I might as well have had no gun.
"Meanwhile I was walking backward, keeping my eye on the lioness, who
was creeping forward on her belly without a sound, but lashing her tail
and keeping her eye on me; and in it I saw that she was coming in a few
seconds more. I dashed my wrist and the palm of my hand against the
brass rim of the cartridge till the blood poured from them--look, there
are the scars of it to this day!"
Here Quatermain held up his right hand to the light and showed us four
or five white cicatrices just where the wrist is set into the hand.
"But it was not of the slightest use," he went on, "the cartridge would
Long Odds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: lands and houses. The Marquis de Ronquerolles had the misfortune to
lose both his children at the time of the cholera, and the only son of
Madame de Serizy, a young soldier of great promise, perished in Africa
in the affair of the Makta. In these days rich families stand between
the danger of impoverishing their children if they have too many, or
of extinguishing their names if they have too few,--a singular result
of the Code which Napoleon never thought of. By a curious turn of
fortune Clementine became, in spite of her father having squandered
his substance on Florine (one of the most charming actresses in
Paris), a great heiress. The Marquis de Ronquerolles, a clever
diplomatist under the new dynasty, his sister, Madame de Serizy, and
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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 Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: the gaff so well? Courage was America's watchword, but a courage of the
body rather than of the soul - physical courage, not moral. What would
happen if America entered the strnggle and the papers were filled, as
were the British and the French, with long casualty lists, each name a
knife thrust somewhere?
She wondered.
And then, before long, it was Sara Lee's turn to, stand the gaff. There
was another letter, a curiously incoherent one from Harvey's sister. She
referred to something that the society had done, and hoped that Sara Lee
would take it in kindness, as it was meant. Harvey was well and much
happier. She was to try to understand Harvey's part. He had been
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