| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: "In the secret dungeon."
"But you, my child?"
"I shall get into it with you. We shall lock the door and
when they have left the prison, we shall again come forth
from our hiding place."
"Zounds, you are right, there!" cried Gryphus; "it's
surprising how much sense there is in such a little head!"
Then, as the gate began to give way amidst the triumphant
shouts of the mob, she opened a little trap-door, and said,
--
"Come along, come along, father."
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: the top of the cliff through glasses. At any rate this was a
point, that I might clear up.
Saying nothing to anybody, one morning I slipped away and
walked to the edge of the lake, a distance of five or six miles
over rough country. Having arrived there I perceived that the
cone-shaped mountain in the centre, which was about a mile from
the lake shore, was much larger than I had thought, quite three
hundred feet high indeed, and with a very large circumference.
Further, its sides evidently once had been terraced, and it was
on one of these broad terraces, half-way up and facing towards
the rising sun, that the ruin-like remains were heaped. I
When the World Shook |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: to be? Chesnel had finished his cup of coffee. His old housekeeper had
just taken away the tray which had been used for the purpose for the
last twenty years. He was waiting for his clerks to go before he
himself went out for his game at cards, and meanwhile he was thinking
--no need to ask of whom or what. A day seldom passed but he asked
himself, "Where is HE? What is HE doing?" He thought that the Count
was in Italy with the fair Duchesse de Maufrigneuse.
When every franc of a man's fortune has come to him, not by
inheritance, but through his own earning and saving, it is one of his
sweetest pleasures to look back upon the pains that have gone to the
making of it, and then to plan out a future for his crowns. This it is
|
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 Lesson of the Master by Henry James: but this was no bar to an expression of proper sympathy with the
head of the profession, for hadn't that very talk made it clear
that the late accomplished lady was the influence that ruled his
life? What catastrophe could be more cruel than the extinction of
such an influence? This was to be exactly the tone taken by St.
George in answering his young friend upwards of a month later. He
made no allusion of course to their important discussion. He spoke
of his wife as frankly and generously as if he had quite forgotten
that occasion, and the feeling of deep bereavement was visible in
his words. "She took everything off my hands - off my mind. She
carried on our life with the greatest art, the rarest devotion, and
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