| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: "I did not suppose it necessary to employ, as it were, legal means
to--"
"Mademoiselle Gamard, who is anxious to avoid all dispute," said
Monsieur Caron, "has sent me to come to an understanding with you."
"Well, if you will have the goodness to return to-morrow," said the
abbe, "I shall then have taken advice in the matter."
The quill-driver withdrew. The poor vicar, frightened at the
persistence with which Mademoiselle Gamard pursued him, returned to
the dining-room with his face so convulsed that everybody cried out
when they saw him: "What IS the matter, Monsieur Birotteau?"
The abbe, in despair, sat down without a word, so crushed was he by
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: ludicrously maimed and distorted, but often with the most
fantastic additions of events, details, names, dates, places,
which each player will aver that he received from the player
before him. I am afraid that too much of the average gossip of
every city, town, and village is little more than a game of
"Russian Scandal;" with this difference that while one is but a
game, the other is but too mischievous earnest.
But now, if among your party there shall be an average lawyer,
medical man, or man of science, you will find that he, and perhaps
he alone, will be able to retail accurately the story which has
been told him. And why? Simply because his mind has been trained
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: cow-boy to Bennington! We should all come to dinner. Though of
course I understand now that many of them have excellent manners.
But would he wear his pistol at table?" So the letter ran on. It
recounted the latest home gossip and jokes. In answering it Molly
Wood had taken no notice of its childish tone here and there.
"Hyeh's some of them cactus blossoms yu' wanted," said the
Virginian. His voice recalled the girl with almost a start. "I've
brought a good hawss I've gentled for yu', and Taylor'll keep him
till I need him."
"Thank you so much! but I wish--"
"I reckon yu' can't stop me lendin' Taylor a hawss. And you
The Virginian |
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 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: Alan Breck renewed the former Conversation; and the deponent,
making the same answer, Alan said, that, if the deponent had any
respect for his friends, he would tell them, that if they offered
to turn out the possessors of Ardshiel's estate, he would make
black cocks of them, before they entered into possession by which
the deponent understood shooting them, it being a common phrase
in the country."
Some time after the publication of Kidnapped we stopped for a
short while in the Appin country, where we were surprised and
interested to discover that the feeling concerning the murder of
Glenure (the "Red Fox," also called "Colin Roy") was almost as
Kidnapped |
