| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: pass pleasantly. He often expressed his uneasiness on
this head, feared the sameness of every day's society
and employments would disgust her with the place,
wished the Lady Frasers had been in the country,
talked every now and then of having a large party
to dinner, and once or twice began even to calculate
the number of young dancing people in the neighbourhood.
But then it was such a dead time of year, no wild-fowl,
no game, and the Lady Frasers were not in the country.
And it all ended, at last, in his telling Henry one morning
that when he next went to Woodston, they would take him
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: appearance of VANITY FAIR, she ran away with the nephew of the lady
with whom she was living, and for a short time made a great splash
in society, quite in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's style, and entirely by
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's methods. Ultimately she came to grief,
disappeared to the Continent, and used to be occasionally seen at
Monte Carlo and other gambling places. The noble gentleman from
whom the same great sentimentalist drew Colonel Newcome died, a few
months after THE NEWCOMER had reached a fourth edition, with the
word 'Adsum' on his lips. Shortly after Mr. Stevenson published
his curious psychological story of transformation, a friend of
mine, called Mr. Hyde, was in the north of London, and being
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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 People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and tore on through his heart, dropping him dead in his tracks.
For a moment the women were as terrified by the report of the
rifle as they had been by the menace of the lion; but when they
saw that the loud noise had evidently destroyed their enemy,
they came creeping cautiously back to examine the carcass.
The man, toward whom I had immediately turned after firing,
lest he should pursue his threatened attack, stood staring at
me in amazement and admiration.
"Why," he asked, "if you could do that, did you not kill me
long before?"
"I told you," I replied, "that I had no quarrel with you. I do
The People That Time Forgot |
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 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: dared not say FOR LEGALITY, as a poetic orator in the Chamber
courageously admitted a short while since--"is the death of us."
This noble magistrate knew all the fascination and the miseries of an
illicit attachment. Esther and Lucien, as we have seen, had taken the
rooms where the Comte de Granville had lived secretly on connubial
terms with Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, and whence she had fled one
day, lured away by a villain. (See A Double Marriage.)
At the very moment when the public prosecutor was saying to himself,
"Camusot is sure to have done something silly," the examining
magistrate knocked twice at the door of his room.
"Well, my dear Camusot, how is that case going on that I spoke of this
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