| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: of even unwonted brilliancy.
"Well," said Daisy, "I should think you would be lonesome!"
"Lonesome?" asked Winterbourne.
"You are always going round by yourself. Can't you get anyone
to walk with you?"
"I am not so fortunate," said Winterbourne, "as your companion."
Giovanelli, from the first, had treated Winterbourne with
distinguished politeness. He listened with a deferential air
to his remarks; he laughed punctiliously at his pleasantries;
he seemed disposed to testify to his belief that Winterbourne
was a superior young man. He carried himself in no degree
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: to another place. We would much prefer the dangers of actual
warfare to this unsoldierly method of subduing the village."
The Tarakanian ruler, becoming enraged, ordered the soldiers to
destroy the whole kingdom, plunder the villages, burn the houses
and provisions, and slaughter the cattle.
"Should you disobey my orders," said he, "I will have every one
of you executed."
The soldiers, becoming frightened, started to do as they were
ordered, but the fools wept bitterly, offering no resistance,
men, women, and children all joining in the general
lamentation.
The Kreutzer Sonata |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: thoughts took a very gloomy tinge indeed. To begin with, in spite
of his mother's assurance, he had no faith in his own cause. His
acquaintance with Carroll was but an affair of months, and their
actual meetings comprised incredibly few days. Orde was naturally
humble-minded. It did not seem conceivable to him that he could win
her without a long courtship. And superadded was the almost
intolerable weight of Carroll's ideas as to her domestic duties.
Although Orde held Mrs. Bishop's exactions in very slight esteem,
and was most sceptical in regard to the disasters that would follow
their thwarting, nevertheless he had to confess to himself that all
Carroll's training, life, the very purity and sweetness of her
|
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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: fairies are now believed by naturalist to be extinct, though a
clergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately
as 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord of
the manor. The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected
that his account of it was incoherent. In the year 1807 a troop of
fairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of a
peasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing. The
son of a wealthy _bourgeois_ disappeared about the same time, but
afterward returned. He had seen the abduction been in pursuit of the
fairies. Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, avers
that so great is the fairies' power of transformation that he saw one
The Devil's Dictionary |
