| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: but, if he knew the lady, the gentleman, who still presented his back
and kept off, the gentleman, the coatless hero of the idyll,
who had responded to her start, was, to match the marvel, none other
than Chad.
Chad and Madame de Vionnet were then like himself taking a day in
the country--though it was as queer as fiction, as farce, that
their country could happen to be exactly his; and she had been the
first at recognition, the first to feel, across the water, the shock--
for it appeared to come to that--of their wonderful accident.
Strether became aware, with this, of what was taking place--
that her recognition had been even stranger for the pair in the boat,
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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 Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: eloped with some Spaniard who had been lying in the house ill with
fever for more than six weeks. No, she never saw the person.
Neither had she seen the Spaniard. She had only heard the talk of
the street. Of course she didn't know where these people had gone.
She manifested some impatience to get rid of Monsieur George and
even attempted to push him towards the door. It was, he says, a
very funny experience. He noticed the feeble flame of the gas-jet
in the hall still waiting for extinction in the general collapse of
the world.
Then he decided to have a bit of dinner at the Restaurant de la
Gare where he felt pretty certain he would not meet any of his
The Arrow of Gold |
