| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: Master of Requests of the section of Paradise. Lastly, two cardinals,
M. de la Luzerne, and M. de Cl****** T*******. The Cardinal of Luzerne
was a writer and was destined to have, a few years later, the honor
of signing in the Conservateur articles side by side with Chateaubriand;
M. de Cl****** T******* was Archbishop of Toul****, and often made
trips to Paris, to his nephew, the Marquis de T*******, who was
Minister of Marine and War. The Cardinal of Cl****** T*******
was a merry little man, who displayed his red stockings beneath his
tucked-up cassock; his specialty was a hatred of the Encyclopaedia,
and his desperate play at billiards, and persons who, at that epoch,
passed through the Rue M***** on summer evenings, where the hotel
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: turned soft by midday; and the crowds that began to throng the
hotels were solid citizens, not the fashionables of the Riviera.
Anita's arm forbade her traveling. In the reassembling of the
party she went to the Kurhaus in the valley below the pension
with one of the women who wished to take the baths.
It was to the Kurhaus, then, that Stewart made his first
excursion after the accident. He went to dinner. Part of the
chaperon's treatment called for an early retiring hour, which was
highly as he had wished it and rather unnerving after all. A man
may decide that a dose of poison is the remedy for all his
troubles, but he does not approach his hour with any hilarity.
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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 Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: in the morning the Emperor shone as brightly as ever in
the rays of the rising sun.
They wakened the boy at daybreak, the Scarecrow
saying to him:
"We have discovered something queer, and therefore we
must counsel together what to do about it."
"What have you discovered?" asked Woot, rubbing the
sleep from his eyes with his knuckles and giving three
wide yawns to prove he was fully awake.
"A Sign," said the Tin Woodman. "A Sign, and another path."
"What does the Sign say?" inquired the boy.
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: "Deuce a bit of it; I have not the cash, and that you know right well.
Besides, it would be money thrown clean away, for what would it bring
in? Oh! you get up early of a morning to come and ask me to build you
a place that would ruin a king, do you? Your name may be David, but I
have not got Solomon's treasury. Why, you are mad! or they changed my
child at nurse. There is one for you that will have grapes on it," he
said, interrupting himself to point out a shoot. "Offspring of this
sort don't disappoint their parents; you dung the vines, and they
repay you for it. I sent you to school; I spent any amount of money to
make a scholar of you; I sent you to the Didots to learn your
business; and all this fancy education ends in a daughter-in-law out
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