| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: meaning it failed to abash him, and he went on in the same tone:
"I didn't mean to give offence; excuse me if I've spoken too
plainly. But why ain't you straight with me--why do you
put up that kind of bluff? You know there've been times when you
were bothered--damned bothered--and as a girl gets older, and
things keep moving along, why, before she knows it, the things
she wants are liable to move past her and not come back. I don't
say it's anywhere near that with you yet; but you've had a taste
of bothers that a girl like yourself ought never to have known
about, and what I'm offering you is the chance to turn your back
on them once for all."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: passes in, we have a parting glimpse of his visage, and recognize
the crafty smile, which was the precursor of the little joke that
he has ever since been playing off at his wife's expense. How
unmercifully has he quizzed the poor woman! Well, a good night's
rest to Wakefield!
This happy event--supposing it to be such--could only have
occurred at an unpremeditated moment. We will not follow our
friend across the threshold. He has left us much food for
thought, a portion of which shall lend its wisdom to a moral, and
be shaped into a figure. Amid the seeming confusion of our
mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system,
Twice Told Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: being hanged. That is all."
"The dinner is growing cold, sir!" cried Jacquotte, in the doorway.
Genestas caught the doctor's arm.
"I have only one comment to offer on what I have just heard," he
remarked. "I am not acquainted with any account of the wars of
Mahomet, so that I can form no opinions as to his military talents;
but if you had only watched the Emperor's tactics during the campaign
in France, you might well have taken him for a god; and if he was
beaten on the field of Waterloo, it was because he was more than
mortal, it was because the earth found his weight too heavy to bear,
and sprang from under his feet! On every other subject I entirely
|
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 Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: great step toward better things. Warned by Ginevra of the difficulties
he would encounter with her father, the young man dared not express
his fear of finding it impossible to please the old man. Courageous
under adversity, brave on a battlefield, he trembled at the thought of
entering Piombo's salon. Ginevra felt him tremble, and this emotion,
the source of which lay in her, was, to her eyes, another proof of
love.
"How pale you are!" she said to him when they reached the door of the
house.
"Oh! Ginevra, if it concerned my life only!--"
Though Bartolomeo had been notified by his wife of the formal
|
