| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: battle because his trumpet had never ceased tooting its one little
tune." Canalis's ambition was to enter political life, and he made
capital of a journey he had taken to Madrid as secretary to the
embassy of the Duc de Chaulieu, though it was really made, according
to Parisian gossip, in the capacity of "attache to the duchess." How
many times a sarcasm or a single speech has decided the whole course
of a man's life. Colla, the late president of the Cisalpine republic,
and the best lawyer in Piedmont, was told by a friend when he was
forty years of age that he knew nothing of botany. He was piqued,
became a second Jussieu, cultivated flowers, and compiled and
published "The Flora of Piedmont," in Latin, a labor of ten years.
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: the door of a respectable hotel? Oh!" he cried, "I know you now!
Common singers! People in trouble with the police! And you
present yourselves at midnight like lords and ladies? Be off with
you!"
"You will permit me to remind you," replied Leon, in thrilling
tones, "that I am a guest in your house, that I am properly
inscribed, and that I have deposited baggage to the value of four
hundred francs."
"You cannot get in at this hour," returned the man. "This is no
thieves' tavern, for mohocks and night rakes and organ-grinders."
"Brute!" cried Elvira, for the organ-grinders touched her home.
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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 When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: During the entire time they never once let me forget that I got
up the dinner, that I telephoned around for them. They asked me
why I couldn't cook--when not one of them knew one side of a
range from the other. And for Anne Brown to talk the way she
did--saying I had always been crazy about Jim, and that she
believed I had known all along that his aunt was coming--for Anne
to talk like that was sheer idiocy. Yes, there was an aunt. The
Japanese butler started the trouble, and Aunt Selina carried it
along.
Chapter II. THE WAY IT BEGAN
It makes me angry every time I think how I tried to make that
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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 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: Bear in mind the decay of Sight Recognition which threatened society
at the time of the Colour Revolt; add too the certainty that Women
would speedily learn to shade off their extremities so as to imitate
the Circles; it must then be surely obvious to you, my dear Reader,
that the Colour Bill placed us under a great danger of confounding
a Priest with a young Woman.
How attractive this prospect must have been to the Frail Sex may
readily be imagined. They anticipated with delight the confusion that
would ensue. At home they might hear political and ecclesiastical
secrets intended not for them but for their husbands and brothers,
and might even issue commands in the name of a priestly Circle;
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
