| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: "Quite comfortable, sir."
A table, with four spindle legs, stood in the room; the doctor drew it
up to the bed, found a tumbler and a phial on the mantel-shelf, and
composed a draught, by carefully measuring a few drops of brown liquid
from the phial into some water, Genestas holding the light the while.
"Your mother is very late."
"She is coming, sir," said the child; "I can hear her footsteps on the
path."
The doctor and the officer looked around them while they waited. At
the foot of the bed there was a sort of mattress made of moss, on
which, doubtless, the mother was wont to sleep in her clothes, for
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: desire you, to con them by too morrow night: and meet
me in the palace wood, a mile without the Towne, by
Moone-light, there we will rehearse: for if we meete in
the Citie, we shalbe dog'd with company, and our deuises
knowne. In the meane time, I wil draw a bil of properties,
such as our play wants. I pray you faile me not
Bottom. We will meete, and there we may rehearse
more obscenely and couragiously. Take paines, be perfect,
adieu
Quin. At the Dukes oake we meete
Bot. Enough, hold or cut bow-strings.
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: me. I allowed if the paynim was satisfied I was, and
we would let it stand at that.
Now Tom he got all that notion out of Walter Scott's
book, which he was always reading. And it WAS a
wild notion, because in my opinion he never could've
raised the men, and if he did, as like as not he would've
got licked. I took the book and read all about it, and
as near as I could make it out, most of the folks that
shook farming to go crusading had a mighty rocky
time of it.
CHAPTER II.
|
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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Long after a repentant and chastened Leslie had gone to sleep, his
arm over Nina's unconscious shoulder, Elizabeth stood wide-eyed on
the tiny balcony outside her room. From it in daylight she could
see the Livingstone house. Now it was invisible, but an upper
window was outlined in the light. Very shyly she kissed her finger
tips to it.
"Good-night, dear," she whispered.
XV
Louis Bassett had left for Norada the day after David's sudden
illness, but ten days later found him only as far as Chicago, and
laid up in his hotel with a sprained knee. It was not until the
The Breaking Point |
