| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: conservative Avenue. The Avenue still had pretensions, as Miss
Staverton said, to decency; the old people had mostly gone, the old
names were unknown, and here and there an old association seemed to
stray, all vaguely, like some very aged person, out too late, whom
you might meet and feel the impulse to watch or follow, in
kindness, for safe restoration to shelter.
They went in together, our friends; he admitted himself with his
key, as he kept no one there, he explained, preferring, for his
reasons, to leave the place empty, under a simple arrangement with
a good woman living in the neighbourhood and who came for a daily
hour to open windows and dust and sweep. Spencer Brydon had his
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: what you and she live on?"
"On some money that comes from America, from a lawyer.
He sends it every quarter. It isn't much!"
"And won't she have disposed of that?"
My companion hesitated--I saw she was blushing.
"I believe it's mine," she said; and the look and tone which
accompanied these words betrayed so the absence of the habit
of thinking of herself that I almost thought her charming.
The next instant she added, "But she had a lawyer once,
ever so long ago. And some people came and signed something."
"They were probably witnesses. And you were not asked to sign?
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: but in his own smooth, resistless way.
"I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not
discourse of things other than business in your letters.
It will doubtless please your friends to know that you are well,
and that you look forward to getting home to them. Is it not so?"
As he spoke he handed me three sheets of note paper and
three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign post,
and looking at them, then at him, and noticing his quiet smile,
with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the red underlip,
I understood as well as if he had spoken that I should be
more careful what I wrote, for he would be able to read it.
Dracula |
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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: . . . . . .
Then out and away to Livingstone once more. The maiden from New
Hampshire disappeared, papa and mamma with her. Disappeared,
too, the old lady from Chicago, and the others.
V
Chicago
"I know thy cunning and thy greed,
Thy hard high lust and wilful deed,
And all thy glory loves to tell
Of specious gifts material."
I HAVE struck a city--a real city--and they call it Chicago.
|
