| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: with the innate genius for observation of the Paris rapin.
The pair disappeared. Nine o'clock was striking in the hotel kitchen.
Georges thought it just and reasonable to remonstrate with Pierrotin.
"Hey! my friend; when a man is blessed with such wheels as these
(striking the clumsy tires with his cane) he ought at least to have
the merit of punctuality. The deuce! one doesn't get into that thing
for pleasure; I have business that is devilishly pressing or I
wouldn't trust my bones to it. And that horse, which you call Rougeot,
he doesn't look likely to make up for lost time."
"We are going to harness Bichette while those gentlemen take their
coffee," replied Pierrotin. "Go and ask, you," he said to his porter,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: said Amy hopefully.
"He's been starved, and he shan't be baked now he's dead. I'll
make him a shroud, and he shall be buried in the garden, and I'll
never have another bird, never, my Pip! For I am too bad to own
one," murmured Beth, sitting on the floor with her pet folded in
her hands.
"The funeral shall be this afternoon, and we will all go. Now,
don't cry, Bethy. It's a pity, but nothing goes right this week,
and Pip has had the worst of the experiment. Make the shroud, and
lay him in my box, and after the dinner party, we'll have a nice
little funeral," said Jo, beginning to feel as if she had undertaken
Little Women |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: must be manfully grappled with by this. No political skirmishing will avail.
The occasion demands statesmanship.
Whether the tremendous war so heroically fought and so victoriously ended
shall pass into history a miserable failure, barren of permanent results,--
a scandalous and shocking waste of blood and treasure,--a strife for empire,
as Earl Russell characterized it, of no value to liberty or civilization,
--an attempt to re-establish a Union by force, which must be the
merest mockery of a Union,--an effort to bring under Federal authority
States into which no loyal man from the North may safely enter,
and to bring men into the national councils who deliberate with daggers
and vote with revolvers, and who do not even conceal their deadly hate
|
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 Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Wrapped him from head to heel; and the waistcloth parted in twain;
And the living fruit of his loins dropped in the fire below.
About the blazing feast-house clustered the eyes of the foe,
Watching, hand upon weapon, lest ever a soul should flee,
Shading the brow from the glare, straining the neck to see
Only, to leeward, the flames in the wind swept far and wide,
And the forest sputtered on fire; and there might no man abide.
Thither Rahero crept, and dropped from the burning eaves,
And crouching low to the ground, in a treble covert of leaves
And fire and volleying smoke, ran for the life of his soul
Unseen; and behind him under a furnace of ardent coal,
Ballads |
