| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d')
Jealousies of a Country Town
Letters of Two Brides
A Man of Business
The Secrets of a Princess
Falcon, Jean
The Chouans
The Muse of the Department
Graff, Wolfgang
Cousin Pons
Grassou, Pierre
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: glass.
Enter Kent.
Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
I will say nothing.
Kent. Who's there?
Fool. Marry, here's grace and a codpiece; that's a wise man and
a
fool.
Kent. Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night
Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark
King Lear |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: attendance on Annette. What had seemed a joke became serious.
Aunt Nina, urged by Philip, remonstrated, and even the mamma of
the pink sunbonnet began to look grave. It was all very well for
a city demoiselle to talk with a fisherman and accept favours at
his hands, provided that the city demoiselle understood that a
vast and bridgeless gulf stretched between her and the fisherman.
But when the demoiselle forgot the gulf and the fisherman refused
to recognise it, why, it was time to take matters in hand.
To all of Aunt Nina's remonstrances, Philip's growlings, and the
averted glances of her companions, Annette was deaf. "You are
narrow-minded," she said laughingly. "I am interested in
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: act, although violent and abusive in speech, his lessons were
apt to go over the heads of his scholars and to leave them
gaping, or more often laughing. Such was his passion for
study that he even grudged himself natural repose; and when
he grew drowsy over his books he would, if it was summer, put
mosquitoes up his sleeve; and, if it was winter, take off his
shoes and run barefoot on the snow. His handwriting was
exceptionally villainous; poet though he was, he had no taste
for what was elegant; and in a country where to write
beautifully was not the mark of a scrivener but an admired
accomplishment for gentlemen, he suffered his letters to be
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