| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: registrar to the court is worth a hundred thousand francs. Few places
are more coveted in the administration. Fraisier, as a justice of the
peace, with the head physician of a hospital for his friend, would
make a rich marriage himself and a good match for Dr. Poulain. Each
would lend a hand to each.
Night set its leaden seal upon the plans made by the sometime attorney
of Mantes, and a formidable scheme sprouted up, a flourishing scheme,
fertile in harvests of gain and intrigue. La Cibot was the hinge upon
which the whole matter turned; and for this reason, any rebellion on
the part of the instrument must be at once put down; such action on
her part was quite unexpected; but Fraisier had put forth all the
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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 Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: Russia is no longer the dizzying kaleidoscope that it was in
1917. No longer does it change visibly from week to week
as it changed in 19l8. Already, to get a clear vision of the
direction in which it is changing, it is necessary to visit it at
intervals of six months, and quite useless to tap the political
barometer several times a day as once upon a time one used
to do. . . . But it is still changing very fast. My jourrnal of
"Russia in 1919,"while giving as I believe a fairly accurate
pictureof the state of affairs in February and March of
1919, pictures a very different stage in the development of
the revolution from that which would be found by observers
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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 Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Look to thy woodcraft,' and so leaving him,
Now with slack rein and careless of himself,
Now with dug spur and raving at himself,
Now with droopt brow down the long glades he rode;
So marked not on his right a cavern-chasm
Yawn over darkness, where, nor far within,
The whole day died, but, dying, gleamed on rocks
Roof-pendent, sharp; and others from the floor,
Tusklike, arising, made that mouth of night
Whereout the Demon issued up from Hell.
He marked not this, but blind and deaf to all
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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 Lady Susan by Jane Austen: no true regard for me, or he would not have listened to her; and SHE, with
her little rebellious heart and indelicate feelings, to throw herself into
the protection of a young man with whom she has scarcely ever exchanged two
words before! I am equally confounded at HER impudence and HIS credulity.
How dared he believe what she told him in my disfavour! Ought he not to
have felt assured that I must have unanswerable motives for all that I had
done? Where was his reliance on my sense and goodness then? Where the
resentment which true love would have dictated against the person defaming
me--that person, too, a chit, a child, without talent or education, whom he
had been always taught to despise? I was calm for some time; but the
greatest degree of forbearance may be overcome, and I hope I was afterwards
Lady Susan |
