| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: tossing her head, the same proud curved beautiful mouth, the same
wonderful smile - VRAI SOURIRE DE FRANCE indeed - as she glanced up
now and then at the window, or stretched out her little hand for
the stately Spanish gentlemen to kiss. But the shrill laughter of
the children grated on his ears, and the bright pitiless sunlight
mocked his sorrow, and a dull odour of strange spices, spices such
as embalmers use, seemed to taint - or was it fancy? - the clear
morning air. He buried his face in his hands, and when the Infanta
looked up again the curtains had been drawn, and the King had
retired.
She made a little MOUE of disappointment, and shrugged her
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: creditors gave him a coat of tar and feathers; his reappearance
some years afterwards, more honourable and honoured than ever,
at Independence, Missouri, the chief of a flourishing colony
of three thousand disciples, and his pursuit thence by outraged Gentiles,
and retirement into the Far West.
Ten hearers only were now left, among them honest Passepartout,
who was listening with all his ears. Thus he learned that,
after long persecutions, Smith reappeared in Illinois,
and in 1839 founded a community at Nauvoo, on the Mississippi,
numbering twenty-five thousand souls, of which he became mayor,
chief justice, and general-in-chief; that he announced himself,
Around the World in 80 Days |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: made the people they wanted not want THEM. And never a wince for
dignity, never a throb of shame at looking each other in the face,
never any independence or resentment or disgust. If his father or
his brother would only knock some one down once or twice a year!
Clever as they were they never guessed the impression they made.
They were good-natured, yes - as good-natured as Jews at the doors
of clothing-shops! But was that the model one wanted one's family
to follow? Morgan had dim memories of an old grandfather, the
maternal, in New York, whom he had been taken across the ocean at
the age of five to see: a gentleman with a high neck-cloth and a
good deal of pronunciation, who wore a dress-coat in the morning,
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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 The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: came back here to practice, and I found you didn't in the least
want me to be a great man. You wanted me to be a shrewd lawyer--
oh, yes! Our veteran here wanted me to get him an increase of
pension, because he had dyspepsia; Phelps wanted a new county
survey that would put the widow Wilson's little bottom
farm inside his south line; Elder wanted to lend money at 5 per
cent a month and get it collected; old Stark here wanted to
wheedle old women up in Vermont into investing their annuities in
real estate mortgages that are not worth the paper they are
written on. Oh, you needed me hard enough, and you'll go on
needing me; and that's why I'm not afraid to plug the truth home
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
