| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: "And if you get into the trouble you are seeking, don't come
whimpering to me for assistance," the seigneur stormed. He was very
angry now. "Since you choose to disobey me, you can break your
empty head against the windmill, and be damned to you."
Andre-Louis bowed with a touch of irony, and reached the door.
"If the windmill should prove too formidable," said he, from the
threshold, "I may see what can be done with the wind. Good-bye,
monsieur my godfather."
He was gone, and M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in the face,
puzzling out that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in
his mind, either on the score of his godson or of M. de La Tour
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: his daughter and presented it with great gallantry.
Clara shook her head, but, seeing her father's disappointment,
relented. "You taste it first. I don't want so much."
Joe sampled it with a beatific expression, and turned to Nils.
"You drink him slow, dis wine. He very soft, but he go down hot.
You see!"
After a second glass Nils declared that he couldn't take any
more without getting sleepy. "Now get your fiddle, Vavrika," he
said as he opened his flute case.
But Joe settled back in his wooden rocker and wagged his big
carpet slipper. "No-no-no-no-no-no-no! No play fiddle now any
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: feeling like a wet rag--utterly limp and discouraged.
But, if you don't mind my speaking of it, YOU don't belong,
and yet YOU come."
It was evident that the lawyer did not mind. He spoke
freely in reply. "Oh, yes, I've got into the habit of it.
I began going when I first came here, and--and so it grew
to be natural for me to go. Then, of course, being the
only lawyer you have, a considerable amount of my business
is mixed up in one way or another with your membership;
you see those are really the things which settle a man
in a rut, and keep him there."
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: apoplexy, and died in three days, after disinheriting the
Cantervilles, who were her nearest relations, and leaving all her
money to her London apothecary. At the last moment, however, his
terror of the twins prevented his leaving his room, and the little
Duke slept in peace under the great feathered canopy in the Royal
Bedchamber, and dreamed of Virginia.
CHAPTER V
A FEW days after this, Virginia and her curly-haired cavalier went
out riding on Brockley meadows, where she tore her habit so badly
in getting through a hedge, that, on her return home, she made up
her mind to go up by the back staircase so as not to be seen. As
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