| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: conjured the Countess, in the most earnest manner, to look up and
say what thus affected her. The unhappy lady raised her head
accordingly, and looking on her attendant with a ghastly eye, and
cheek as pale as clay--"Janet," she said, "I have drunk it."
"God be praised!" said Janet hastily--"I mean, God be praised
that it is no worse; the potion will not harm you. Rise, shake
this lethargy from your limbs, and this despair from your mind."
"Janet," repeated the Countess again, "disturb me not--leave me
at peace--let life pass quietly. I am poisoned."
"You are not, my dearest lady," answered the maiden eagerly.
"What you have swallowed cannot injure you, for the antidote has
Kenilworth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: a make in use for printers' proofs at the present day--a kind of paper
that cannot be depended upon, for the sizing itself is not always
certain. This was a great result, considering the condition of the
paper trade in 1823, and David hoped to solve the final difficulties
of the problem, but--it had cost ten thousand francs.
Singular rumors were current at this time in Angouleme and L'Houmeau.
It was said that David Sechard was ruining the firm of Cointet
Brothers. Experiments had eaten up twenty thousand francs; and the
result, said gossip, was wretchedly bad paper. Other manufacturers
took fright at this, hugged themselves on their old-fashioned methods,
and, being jealous of the Cointets, spread rumors of the approaching
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: the Picts to pass North that season without harm. Therefore
the Picts were well fed that winter, and since they
were in some sort my children, I was glad of it. We had
only two thousand men on the Wall, and I wrote many
times to Maximus and begged - prayed - him to send me
only one cohort of my old North British troops. He could
not spare them. He needed them to win more victories in Gaul.
'Then came news that he had defeated and slain the
Emperor Gratian, and thinking he must now be secure, I
wrote again for men. He answered: "You will learn that I
have at last settled accounts with the pup Gratian. There was no
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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 Burning Daylight by Jack London: muscles were high-power explosives. The levers of his body
snapped into play like the jaws of steel traps. And in addition
to all this, his was that super-strength that is the dower of but
one human in millions--a strength depending not on size but on
degree, a supreme organic excellence residing in the stuff of the
muscles themselves. Thus, so swiftly could he apply a stress,
that, before an opponent could become aware and resist, the aim
of the stress had been accomplished. In turn, so swiftly did he
become aware of a stress applied to him, that he saved himself by
resistance or by delivering a lightning counter-stress.
"It ain't no use you-all standing there," Daylight addressed the
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