| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: That was all.
"Well?" I said, looking up. "There is nothing in that, is there?
A man ought to be able to change the plan of his house without
becoming an object of suspicion."
"There is little in the paper itself," he admitted; "but why
should Arnold Armstrong carry that around, unless it meant
something? He never built a house, you may be sure of that. If
it is this house, it may mean anything, from a secret room--"
"To an extra bath-room," I said scornfully. "Haven't you a
thumb-print, too?"
"I have," he said with a smile, "and the print of a foot in a
The Circular Staircase |
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 Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: snares and woes of literary responsibilities were utterly unknown.
Albert quietly kept the upper hand and made Alfred Boucher his devoted
adherent. Alfred was the only man in Besancon with whom the king of
the bar was on familiar terms. Alfred came in the morning to discuss
the articles for the next number with Albert in the garden. It is
needless to say that the trial number contained a "Meditation" by
Alfred, which Savaron approved. In his conversations with Alfred,
Albert would let drop some great ideas, subjects for articles of which
Alfred availed himself. And thus the merchant's son fancied he was
making capital out of the great man. To Alfred, Albert was a man of
genius, of profound politics. The commercial world, enchanted at the
Albert Savarus |
