| 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: "Well, then, hearken to me."
"I listen."
"You agree, do you not, that obtaining a carriage is out of
the question?"
"I do."
"Neither can we procure horses?"
"True; we have offered any sum, but have failed."
"Well, now, what do you say to a cart? I dare say such a
thing might be had."
"Very possibly."
"And a pair of oxen?"
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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: too have sometimes that dark melancholy which overclouds the
brain."
"You shall not do so, madam," said Janet; "who shall answer that
this fellow vends what is wholesome?"
"I will myself warrant my good faith," said Wayland; and taking a
part of the medicine, he swallowed it before them. The Countess
now bought what remained, a step to which Janet, by further
objections, only determined her the more obstinately. She even
took the first dose upon the instant, and professed to feel her
heart lightened and her spirits augmented--a consequence which,
in all probability, existed only in her own imagination. The
Kenilworth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: seem fabulous to-day. Every kind of persuasion was brought to bear on
journalists--dinners, flattery, and presents. The following story will
throw more light on the close connection between the critic and the
publisher than any quantity of flat assertions.
There was once upon a time an editor of an important paper, a clever
writer with a prospect of becoming a statesman; he was young in those
days, and fond of pleasure, and he became the favorite of a well-known
publishing house. One Sunday the wealthy head of the firm was
entertaining several of the foremost journalists of the time in the
country, and the mistress of the house, then a young and pretty woman,
went to walk in her park with the illustrious visitor. The head-clerk
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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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: heart; she seemed no more a woman but the angel of ecstatic
tenderness. I ran to her in a kind of terror; but she shrank
a little back and laid her finger on her lips, with something
arch and yet unearthly. To the doctor, on the contrary, she
reached out her hand as to a friend and helper; and so
strange was the scene that I forgot to be offended.
'Lucy,' said the doctor, 'all is prepared. Will you go
alone, or shall your daughter follow us?'
'Let Asenath come,' she answered, 'dear Asenath! At this
hour, when I am purified of fear and sorrow, and already
survive myself and my affections, it is for your sake, and
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