| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: features. Her old terrors awoke; she took advantage of a kind of
hesitation on his part, slipped through the shadows to the door of the
solitary house, pressed a spring, and vanished swiftly as a phantom.
For awhile the stranger stood motionless, gazing up at the house. It
was in some sort a type of the wretched dwellings in the suburb; a
tumble-down hovel, built of rough stones, daubed over with a coat of
yellowish stucco, and so riven with great cracks that there seemed to
be danger lest the slightest puff of wind might blow it down. The
roof, covered with brown moss-grown tiles, had given way in several
places, and looked as though it might break down altogether under the
weight of the snow. The frames of the three windows on each story were
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: decaying dwelling. It was very evidently of a different age and
class from those about it.
Muller had already raised his hand to pull the bell, when he stopped
and let it sink again. His eye caught sight of a placard pasted up
on the wall of the next house, and already half torn off by the wind.
The detective walked over, and raising the placard with his cane,
read the words on it. "That's right," he said to himself. Amster
gave a look on the paper. But he could not connect the contents of
the notice with the case of the kidnapped lady, and he shook his
head in surprise when Muller turned to him with the words: "The lady
we are looking for is not insane." On the paper was announced in
|
