| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: "Ten francs, ten sous."
"Twelve francs."
"Fifteen francs."
"Fifteen francs, fifty centimes," she said.
"One hundred francs."
"One hundred and fifty francs."
I yielded. We were not rich enough at that moment to bid higher. Our
poor fisherman did not know whether to be angry at a hoax, or to go
mad with joy; we drew him from his quandary by giving him the name of
our landlady and telling him to take the lobster and the crab to her
house.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: was a noble barb, and its trappings were rich with silk
and silver bells.
So thus the band journeyed along the causeway between the dikes, till at
last they reached the great gate of Emmet Priory. There the Knight called
to one of his men and bade him knock at the porter's lodge with the heft
of his sword.
The porter was drowsing on his bench within the lodge,
but at the knock he roused himself and, opening the wicket,
came hobbling forth and greeted the Knight, while a tame starling
that hung in a wicker cage within piped out, "_In coelo quies!
In coelo quies!_" such being the words that the poor old lame
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: again to see a human being." He told her then of his life
since he had returned to the jungle--of how he had dropped
like a plummet from a civilized Parisian to a savage Waziri
warrior, and from there back to the brute that he had been raised.
She asked him many questions, and at last fearfully of the
things that Monsieur Thuran had told her--of the woman in Paris.
He narrated every detail of his civilized life to her,
omitting nothing, for he felt no shame, since his heart always
had been true to her. When he had finished he sat looking at
her, as though waiting for her judgment, and his sentence.
"I knew that he was not speaking the truth," she said.
The Return of Tarzan |
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 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: now hid the same still more, with the skirts of her dress.
But it happened that the locksmith had been thinking of this very
article on his way home, and that, coming into the room and not
seeing it, he at once demanded where it was.
Mrs Varden had no resource but to produce it, which she did with
many tears, and broken protestations that if she could have known--
'Yes, yes,' said Varden, 'of course--I know that. I don't mean to
reproach you, my dear. But recollect from this time that all good
things perverted to evil purposes, are worse than those which are
naturally bad. A thoroughly wicked woman, is wicked indeed. When
religion goes wrong, she is very wrong, for the same reason. Let
Barnaby Rudge |
