| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: and, enraged, swore on the Bible not to allow of this
addition to their number, but to resist all the persecutions
which might ensue; and should any one of them chance to
forfeit his post by this resistance, to combine to indemnify
him for his loss.
Now the following occurrences had taken place between the
two contending parties
On the seventh of January between seven and eight hundred
tradesmen had assembled in Paris to discuss a new tax which
was to be levied on house property. They deputed ten of
their number to wait upon the Duke of Orleans, who,
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: This choice piece of seaboard was sacred, besides, to the wrecker;
and the Bass, in the eye of fancy, still flew the colours of King
James; and in the ear of fancy the arches of Tantallon still rang
with horse-shoe iron, and echoed to the commands of Bell-the-Cat.
There was nothing to mar your days, if you were a boy summering in
that part, but the embarrassment of pleasure. You might golf if
you wanted; but I seem to have been better employed. You might
secrete yourself in the Lady's Walk, a certain sunless dingle of
elders, all mossed over by the damp as green as grass, and dotted
here and there by the stream-side with roofless walls, the cold
homes of anchorites. To fit themselves for life, and with a
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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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: the solid lump of ice in their water-tin. When we flashed
the lantern in their eyes, the hens set up a great cackling
and flew about clumsily, scattering down-feathers. The mottled,
pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful of captivity,
ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke their ugly,
painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the chores
were done just when it was time to begin them all over again!
That was a strange, unnatural sort of day.
XIV
ON THE MORNING of the twenty-second I wakened with a start.
Before I opened my eyes, I seemed to know that something
My Antonia |
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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: light of the dawn. But she was now her true self, she was like a
fine tranquil afternoon--and not so very far advanced either. A
woman not much over thirty, with a dazzling complexion and a little
colour, a lot of hair, a smooth brow, a fine chin, and only the eyes
of the Flora of the old days, absolutely unchanged.
In the room into which she led me we found a Miss Somebody--I didn't
catch the name,--an unobtrusive, even an indistinct, middle-aged
person in black. A companion. All very proper. She came and went
and even sat down at times in the room, but a little apart, with
some sewing. By the time she had brought in a lighted lamp I had
heard all the details which really matter in this story. Between me
Chance |
