| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: not heard,--that of Frithiof, the chronicle that you believe and have
so often promised me. Tell us the story of the peasant lad who owned
the ship that talked and had a soul. Come! I dream of the frigate
Ellida, the fairy with the sails young girls should navigate!"
"Since we have returned to the regions of Jarvis," said Wilfrid, whose
eyes were fastened on Seraphita as those of a robber, lurking in the
darkness, fasten on the spot where he knows the jewels lie, "tell me
why you do not marry?"
"You are all born widows and widowers," she replied; "but my marriage
was arranged at my birth. I am betrothed."
"To whom?" they cried.
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: I had walked among rumours. The whole tale will be some day put
into my hand, and I shall share it with humorous friends.
It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch of gaiety in
Samoa will soon cease; and the fierce white light of history will
beat no longer on Yours Sincerely and his fellows here on the
beach. We ask ourselves whether the reason will more rejoice over
the end of a disgraceful business, or the unregenerate man more
sorrow over the stoppage of the fun. For, say what you please, it
has been a deeply interesting time. You don't know what news is,
nor what politics, nor what the life of man, till you see it on so
small a scale and with your own liberty on the board for stake. I
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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 Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: Leaving the flower garden Volgin entered the
avenue of lime trees, hundreds of years old, which
peasant girls were tidying and sweeping with
spades and brooms. The gardener was busy
measuring, and a boy was bringing something in
a cart. Passing these Volgin went into the park
of at least a hundred and twenty-five acres,
filled with fine old trees, and intersected by a
network of well-kept walks. Smoking as he
strolled Volgin took his favourite path past the
summer-house into the fields beyond. It was
The Forged Coupon |
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 The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: called this conviction was cruelly confirmed. In the interval he
had kept away from the church, and he needed no fresh assurance
from her to know she hadn't entered it. The change was complete
enough: it had broken up her life. Indeed it had broken up his,
for all the fires of his shrine seemed to him suddenly to have been
quenched. A great indifference fell upon him, the weight of which
was in itself a pain; and he never knew what his devotion had been
for him till in that shock it ceased like a dropped watch. Neither
did he know with how large a confidence he had counted on the final
service that had now failed: the mortal deception was that in this
abandonment the whole future gave way.
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