| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: very old and of the latter very young. A few of the babies were
asleep, but most of them were still very much alive to this scene
of unwonted hilarity in their young lives.
As soon as she emerged into the general publicity of the dancing
room her foreman pounced upon Helen and led her to a place in the
head set that was making up. The floor was rough, the music jerky
and uncertain, the quadrilling an exhibition of joyous and
awkward abandon; but its picturesque lack of convention appealed
to the girl from Michigan. It rather startled her to be swung so
vigorously, but a glance about the room showed that these
humorous-eyed Westerners were merely living up to the duty of the
|
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 Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: The marquise looked at him fixedly.
"The glance you gave them did not escape me," she said, motioning
towards the minister and Madame Rabourdin; "it pierced the mask of
your spectacles. How amusing you both are, to quarrel over that bone!"
As the marquise turned to leave the room the minister joined her and
escorted her to the door.
"Well," said des Lupeaulx to Madame Rabourdin, "what do you think of
his Excellency?"
"He is charming. We must know these poor ministers to appreciate
them," she added, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard by his
Excellency's wife. "The newspapers and the opposition calumnies are so
|
