| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: will never speak to you again. But he doesn't want you hanged,
Andre."
"Then we are agreed on that at least, for I don't want it myself."
"I'll make your peace with him. And now - good-bye, Andre. Send me
a word when you are safe."
She held out a hand that looked ghostly in the faint light. He took
it and bore it to his lips.
"God bless you, Aline."
She was gone, and he stood listening to the receding clopper-clop of
hooves until it grew faint in the distance. Then slowly, with
shoulders hunched and head sunk on his breast, he retraced his steps
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: but though this circumstance had made the arrangement
somewhat easier to Sir Thomas's conscience, he could not
but feel it to be an act of injustice, and he earnestly
tried to impress his eldest son with the same conviction,
in the hope of its producing a better effect than anything he
had yet been able to say or do.
"I blush for you, Tom," said he, in his most dignified manner;
"I blush for the expedient which I am driven on, and I trust
I may pity your feelings as a brother on the occasion.
You have robbed Edmund for ten, twenty, thirty years,
perhaps for life, of more than half the income which ought
Mansfield Park |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great merit, energetic,
prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having traveled over the
whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in council, resolute in
action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor danger, when in pursuit of
information, for himself first, and then for his journal, a perfect
treasury of knowledge on all sorts of curious subjects, of the unpublished,
of the unknown, and of the impossible. He was one of those intrepid
observers who write under fire, "reporting" among bullets, and to whom
every danger is welcome.
He also had been in all the battles, in the first rank, revolver in one
hand, note-book in the other; grape-shot never made his pencil tremble. He
The Mysterious Island |
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 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: Desmarets.
Birotteau ventured on a fib, and allowed her to suppose that he had
designed it.
Cesarine, who was asked, of course, for all the dances, understood
very well Anselme's delicacy in that matter.
"If I thought only of my own wishes," he had whispered as they left
the dinner-table, "I should beg you to grant me the favor of a
quadrille; but my happiness would be too costly to our mutual self-
love."
Cesarine, who thought all men walked ungracefully if they stood
straight on their legs, was resolved to open the ball with Popinot.
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
