| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: have acquired the property in Texas which he and Pitezel had set
about developing. There was quite a tragedy, according to
Holmes, connected with the life of Miss Williams. She had come
to Holmes in 1893, as secretary, at a drug store which he was
then keeping in Chicago. Their relations had become more
intimate, and later in the year Miss Williams wrote to her
sister, Nannie, saying that she was going to be married, and
inviting her to the wedding. Nannie arrived, but unfortunately a
violent quarrel broke out between the two sisters, and Holmes
came home to find that Minnie in her rage had killed her sister.
He had helped her out of the trouble by dropping Nannie's body
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)--it appeared to
me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there
came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its
exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull
one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir
Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt,
the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid
the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary
commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in
itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or
disturbed me. I continued the story:
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: and at the same moment Lambert Sollas, with his fierce
nod, struck the opening bars of "Auld Lang
Syne."...Charity stared straight ahead of her and then,
dropping her flowers, fell face downward at Mr.
Royall's feet.
XIV
NORTH DORMER'S celebration naturally included the
villages attached to its township, and the festivities
were to radiate over the whole group, from Dormer and
the two Crestons to Hamblin, the lonely hamlet on the
north slope of the Mountain where the first snow always
|
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 Falk by Joseph Conrad: a word to anybody. He acknowledged my presence
by a drop of his eyelids, and that was all. Sprawl-
ing there in the chair, he would, now and again,
draw the palms of both his hands down his face,
giving at the same time a slight, almost impercepti-
ble, shudder.
It was a habit he had, and of course I was per-
fectly familiar with it, since you could not remain
an hour in his company without being made to won-
der at such a movement breaking some long period
of stillness. it was a passionate and inexplicable
Falk |
