| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: hairy ear and enjoying the little convulsive movements which kept
traversing his heavy face. There would always be time enough to
patch all that up if that ninny of a Count Muffat were really to
treat her as Joseph did Potiphar's wife.
"Leoville or Chambertin?" murmured a waiter, who came craning
forward between Nana and Steiner just as the latter was addressing
her in a low voice.
"Eh, what?" he stammered, losing his head. "Whatever you like--I
don't care."
Vandeuvres gently nudged Lucy Stewart, who had a very spiteful
tongue and a very fierce invention when once she was set going.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: only the natural process of evolution. In the beginning, the
instincts of animals are confined to alimentation, self-protection,
and the multiplication of their species. As time goes on and the
needs of life become more complex, power follows need. We have been
long accustomed to consider growth as applied almost exclusively to
size in its various aspects. But Nature, who has no doctrinaire
ideas, may equally apply it to concentration. A developing thing
may expand in any given way or form. Now, it is a scientific law
that increase implies gain and loss of various kinds; what a thing
gains in one direction it may lose in another. May it not be that
Mother Nature may deliberately encourage decrease as well as
Lair of the White Worm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: as it was on a lower level than the garden.
On the first floor was Madame's bed-chamber, a large room papered in a
flowered design and containing the portrait of Monsieur dressed in the
costume of a dandy. It communicated with a smaller room, in which
there were two little cribs, without any mattresses. Next, came the
parlour (always closed), filled with furniture covered with sheets.
Then a hall, which led to the study, where books and papers were piled
on the shelves of a book-case that enclosed three quarters of the big
black desk. Two panels were entirely hidden under pen-and-ink
sketches, Gouache landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better
times and vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window
A Simple Soul |
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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: to his friend.
"Who, I?--nothing," answered Varney, but with sunken head and
sullen voice; "nothing but communicated to her her lord's
commands, which, if the lady list not to obey, she knows better
how to answer it than I may pretend to do."
"Now, by Heaven, Janet!" said the Countess, "the false traitor
lies in his throat! He must needs lie, for he speaks to the
dishonour of my noble lord; he must needs lie doubly, for he
speaks to gain ends of his own, equally execrable and
unattainable."
"You have misapprehended me, lady," said Varney, with a sulky
Kenilworth |
