| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "I wonder if you will stick up for me the way you
do for your sisters when you are my wife?" said
Tom, with a burst of love and admiration. Then
he added: "Of course you are going to be my wife,
Annie? You know what this means?"
"If you think I will make you as good a wife as
you can find," said Annie.
"As good a wife! Annie, do you really know
what you are?"
"Just an ordinary girl, with no special talent for
anything."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which indeed
gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was
invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil
kindliness when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell
one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was
lying--of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I.
He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but
that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man.
"I say!" he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward
rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, "you know
I was alone here last night?"
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: splendid display of a collation prepared for three hundred persons. As
supper was about to begin, Martial led the Countess to an oval boudoir
looking on to the garden, where the rarest flowers and a few shrubs
made a scented bower under bright blue hangings. The murmurs of the
festivity here died away. The Countess, at first startled, refused
firmly to follow the young man; but, glancing in a mirror, she no
doubt assured herself that they could be seen, for she seated herself
on an ottoman with a fairly good grace.
"This room is charming," said she, admiring the sky-blue hangings
looped with pearls.
"All here is love and delight!" said the Baron, with deep emotion.
|
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 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: rights, and scolded and ordered us all; and when Catherine was
convalescent, she insisted on conveying her to Thrushcross Grange:
for which deliverance we were very grateful. But the poor dame had
reason to repent of her kindness: she and her husband both took
the fever, and died within a few days of each other.
Our young lady returned to us saucier and more passionate, and
haughtier than ever. Heathcliff had never been heard of since the
evening of the thunder-storm; and, one day, I had the misfortune,
when she had provoked me exceedingly, to lay the blame of his
disappearance on her: where indeed it belonged, as she well knew.
From that period, for several months, she ceased to hold any
Wuthering Heights |
