| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: self pleasantly sleepy in the evening. However, we are to
astonish the echoes on the 30th of July. My grandfather has given
me carte blanche for once, and I promise you the entertainment
shall be worthy of the occasion. The world will not see the grand
epoch of my majority twice. I think I shall have a lofty throne
for you, Godmamma, or rather two, one on the lawn and another in
the ballroom, that you may sit and look down upon us like an
Olympian goddess."
"I mean to bring out my best brocade, that I wore at your
christening twenty years ago," said Mrs. Irwine. "Ah, I think I
shall see your poor mother flitting about in her white dress,
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: marriage unblessed by God or man which happiness is thought to
justify, but which no happiness absolves, and for which men blush at
last, that she had a daughter, a daughter to save, a daughter for whom
to desire a noble life and the chastity she had not. Henceforth, happy
or not happy, opulent or beggared, she had in her heart a pure,
untainted sentiment, the highest of all human feelings because the
most disinterested. Love has its egotism, but motherhood has none. La
Marana was a mother like none other; for, in her total, her eternal
shipwreck, motherhood might still redeem her. To accomplish sacredly
through life the task of sending a pure soul to heaven, was not that a
better thing than a tardy repentance? was it not, in truth, the only
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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 Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: with new striped awnings, and the electrics had it as light as day.
"'I've been manager here for a year,' says Denver, as we drew nigh.
'When I took charge,' says he, 'nobody nor nothing ever stopped at the
Brunswick. The clock over the clerks' desk used to run for weeks
without winding. A man fell dead with heart-disease on the sidewalk in
front of it one day, and when they went to pick him up he was two
blocks away. I figured out a scheme to catch the West Indies and South
American trade. I persuaded the owners to invest a few more thousands,
and I put every cent of it in electric lights, cayenne papre, gold-
leaf, and garlic. I got a Spanish-speaking force of employees and a
string band; and there was talk going round of a cockfight in the
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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 Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: was mostly about the chances of peace, and Litvinov's rather
pessimistic reports were heard with disappointment. Just as
I had finished, Vorovsky, Madame Vorovsky and little Nina,
together with the two Norwegians and the Swede, came in.
I learnt that about half the party were going on to Moscow
that night and, deciding to go with them, hurried off to the
hotel.
PETROGRAD TO MOSCOW
There was, of course, a dreadful scrimmage about getting
away. Several people were not ready at the last minute.
Only one motor was obtainable for nine persons with their
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