| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: fill out this orb of a high destiny if not such beauty and such
joy? I had a dim idea that Lord Considine was a great proprietor,
and though there mingled with it a faint impression that I
shouldn't like his son the result of the two images was a whimsical
prayer that the girl mightn't miss her possible fortune.
CHAPTER IV
One day in the course of the following June there was ushered into
my studio a gentleman whom I had not yet seen but with whom I had
been very briefly in correspondence. A letter from him had
expressed to me some days before his regret on learning that my
"splendid portrait" of Miss Flora Louisa Saunt, whose full name
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: as well pursue a shadow!"
A few hours later the shrubbery yielded up its secret, a simple one enough:
A big cask sunk in a pit, with a laurel shrub cunningly affixed
to its movable lid, which was further disguised with tufts of grass.
A slender bamboo-jointed rod lay near the fence. It had a hook on the top,
and was evidently used for attaching the ladder.
"It was the end of this ladder which Miss Eltham saw," said Smith,
"as he trailed it behind him into the shrubbery when she interrupted
him in her fathers room. He and whomever he had with him doubtless
slipped in during the daytime--whilst Eltham was absent in London--
bringing the prepared cask and all necessary implements with them.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on
to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds;
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow,
and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
Second Inaugural Address |
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 Camille by Alexandre Dumas: "Then, in less than a month's time we shall be in some village,
walking by the river side, and drinking milk. Does it seem
strange that Marguerite Gautier should speak to you like that?
The fact is, my friend, that when this Paris life, which seems to
make me so happy, doesn't burn me, it wearies me, and then I have
sudden aspirations toward a calmer existence which might recall
my childhood. One has always had a childhood, whatever one
becomes. Don't be alarmed; I am not going to tell you that I am
the daughter of a colonel on half-pay, and that I was brought up
at Saint-Denis. I am a poor country girl, and six years ago I
could not write my own name. You are relieved, aren't you? Why is
Camille |
