| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: decorum -- the recent death. You would not have me marry
under such sad auspices?"
"My child," exclaimed the old lady sharply, "let us hear
none of the conventional objections that deter weak minds
from preparing for the future. I also was married at the
death-bed of my mother, and certainly I have not been less
happy on that account."
"Still that idea of death, madame," said Villefort.
"Still? -- Always! I tell you I am going to die -- do you
understand? Well, before dying, I wish to see my son-in-law.
I wish to tell him to make my child happy; I wish to read in
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: two after I took it, at night?"
"I did not, Miss Innes. I have never been in the house before.
Well, the Carrington woman didn't show up until the night Mr.
Halsey disappeared. She came to the office late, and the
doctor was out. She waited around, walking the floor and working
herself into a passion. When the doctor didn't come back, she
was in an awful way. She wanted me to hunt him, and when he
didn't appear, she called him names; said he couldn't fool her.
There was murder being done, and she would see him swing for it.
"She struck me as being an ugly customer, and when she left,
about eleven o'clock, and went across to the Armstrong place, I
The Circular Staircase |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Now we behold the embers flee
About the firelit hearth; and see
Our faces painted as we pass,
Like pictures, on the window glass.
Must we to bed indeed? Well then,
Let us arise and go like men,
And face with an undaunted tread
The long black passage up to bed.
Farewell, O brother, sister, sire!
O pleasant party round the fire!
The songs you sing, the tales you tell,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: best of the colts are pranced round, a few minutes each, to show
their paces. What is that old gentleman crying about? and the old
lady by him, and the three girls, what are they all covering their
eyes for? Oh, that is THEIR colt which has just been trotted up on
the stage. Do they really think those little thin legs can do
anything in such a slashing sweepstakes as is coming off in these
next forty years? Oh, this terrible gift of second-sight that
comes to some of us when we begin to look through the silvered
rings of the ARCUS SENILIS!
TEN YEARS GONE. First turn in the race. A few broken down; two or
three bolted. Several show in advance of the ruck. CASSOCK, a
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
