| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: as usual, rather one-sided but Cassidy accepted them, and it
seemed before noon that a fight was assured.
Billy was more nearly happy again than he had been since
the day he had renounced Barbara Harding to the man he
thought she loved. He read and re-read the accounts in the
papers, and then searching for more references to himself off
the sporting page he ran upon the very name that had been
constantly in his thoughts for all these months--Harding.
Persistent rumor has it that the engagement of the beautiful
Miss Harding to Wm. J. Mallory has been broken. Miss
Harding could not be seen at her father's home up to a late
The Mucker |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: matter. Dost thou not know thou mayst injure her by such witless
folly as that of meeting her privily, and privily writing to
her?"
"I meant no harm," said Myles.
"I believe thee," said the Earl. "That will do now; thou mayst
go."
Myles hesitated.
"What wouldst thou say?" said Lord Mackworth.
"Only this," said Myles, "an I have thy leave so to do, that the
Lady Alice hath chosen me to be her knight, and so, whether I may
see her or speak with her or no, the laws of chivalry give me,
Men of Iron |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: occupied, perhaps, about the good of the country; the sisters are
engrossed in a round of other interests. All the members of such a
family live disunited, forgetting one another, bound together only by
some feeble tie of memory, until, perhaps, a sentiment of pride or
self-interest either joins them or separates them in heart as they
already are in fact. Modern laws, by multiplying the family by the
family, has created a great evil,--namely, individualism.
In the depths of this solitude where their girlhood was spent,
Angelique and Eugenie seldom saw their father, and when he did enter
the grand apartment of his wife on the first floor, he brought with
him a saddened face. In his own home he always wore the grave and
|
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 Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin
Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within;
Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run,
And. . .the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!"
. . . . .
The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell
Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell:
The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain,
But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again:
Verses 1889-1896 |
