| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: The Underground City
OR
The Black Indies
(Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern)
The Underground City
CHAPTER I
CONTRADICTORY LETTERS
To Mr. F. R. Starr, Engineer, 30 Canongate, Edinburgh.
IF Mr. James Starr will come to-morrow to the Aberfoyle coal-mines,
Dochart pit, Yarrow shaft, a communication of an interesting nature
will be made to him.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: used to hold the numbered balls when card-players draw for their
places at pool. We were all roused to a more or less keen curiosity;
for this balloting to clarify morality was certainly original.
Inspection of the ballot-box showed the presence of nine white balls!
The result did not surprise me; but it came into my heard to count the
young men of my own age whom I had brought to sit in judgment. These
casuists were precisely nine in number; they all had the same thought.
"Oh, oh!" I said to myself, "here is secret unanimity to forbid the
marriage, and secret unanimity to sanction it! How shall I solve that
problem?"
"Where does the father-in-law live?" asked one my school-friends,
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: intend to marry, or to become interested in any one man.
She had hardly given a thought to Leslie Ward. He had come and
gone, one of that steady procession of men, mostly married, who
battered their heads now and then like night beetles outside a
window, against the hard glass of her ambition. Because her
business was to charm, she had been charming to him. And could not
always remember his name!
As the months went by she began to accept Fred's verdict that
nothing was going to happen. Bassett was back and at work. Either
dead or a fugitive somewhere was Judson Clark, but that thought she
had to keep out of her mind. Sometimes, as the play went on, and
The Breaking Point |
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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: have saved her. She accused herself, prayed to be able to join her
child, and cried in the midst of her dreams. Of the latter, one more
especially haunted her. Her husband, dressed like a sailor, had come
back from a long voyage, and with tears in his eyes told her that he
had received the order to take Virginia away. Then they both consulted
about a hiding-place.
Once she came in from the garden, all upset. A moment before (and she
showed the place), the father and daughter had appeared to her, one
after the other; they did nothing but look at her.
During several months she remained inert in her room. Felicite scolded
her gently; she must keep up for her son and also for the other one,
A Simple Soul |
