| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: Perpetual Edict -- had, from hatred against William of
Orange, hired an assassin to deliver the new Republic of its
new Stadtholder; and he, Tyckelaer was the person thus
chosen; but that, horrified at the bare idea of the act
which he was asked to perpetrate, he had preferred rather to
reveal the crime than to commit it.
This disclosure was, indeed, well calculated to call forth a
furious outbreak among the Orange faction. The Attorney
General caused, on the 16th of August, 1672, Cornelius de
Witt to be arrested; and the noble brother of John de Witt
had, like the vilest criminal, to undergo, in one of the
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: and have a look at you. Said she knew you were worrying." With laughing
eyes the doctor looked at the breakfast-table. "Managed to peck a bit, I
see, eh?"
"Hoo-wih!" shouted the wind, shaking the window-sashes.
"Pity--this weather," said Doctor Erb.
"Yes, it gets on Anna's nerves, and it's just nerve she wants."
"Eh, what's that?" retorted the doctor. "Nerve! Man alive! She's got
twice the nerve of you and me rolled into one. Nerve! she's nothing but
nerve. A woman who works as she does about the house and has three
children in four years thrown in with the dusting, so to speak!"
He pitched his half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace and frowned at the
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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 Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: lawns and shrubberies, and up and down Bellevue Avenue
rolled a double line of victorias, dog-carts, landaus
and "vis-a-vis," carrying well-dressed ladies and
gentlemen away from the Beaufort garden-party, or homeward
from their daily afternoon turn along the Ocean
Drive.
"Shall we go to see Granny?" May suddenly
proposed. "I should like to tell her myself that I've won
the prize. There's lots of time before dinner."
Archer acquiesced, and she turned the ponies down
Narragansett Avenue, crossed Spring Street and drove
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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 A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: love and its good works, he was in danger of being misunderstood
by strangers, as though he held the bare knowledge and assent to
be sufficient for justification, and such preaching would indeed
have led to frivolity and disorderly conduct. But even apart from
the question whether or not the brother of the Elector was
disturbed by such scruples, Luther must have welcomed the
opportunity, when the summons came to him, to dedicate his book
Of Good Works to a member of the Electoral house. At any rate the
book could serve to acquaint him with the thoughts of his
much-abused pastor and professor at Wittenberg, for never before
had Luther expressed himself on the important question of good
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