| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: "There is no return from such contempt," she was saying to herself;
"and if he cannot love me, I will kill him--no other woman shall have
him."
"No, abbe, no!" cried the young chief, in a loud voice which was heard
through the panel, "it must be so."
"Monsieur le marquis," replied the Abbe Gudin, haughtily; "you will
scandalize all Brittany if you give that ball at Saint James. It is
preaching, not dancing, which will rouse our villagers. Take guns, not
fiddles."
"Abbe, you have sense enough to know that it is not in a general
assembly of our partisans that I can learn to know these people, or
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: it we know up to the sailing of the Arrow after the murder
of Snipes, and the burial of his body above the treasure chest.
It seems that the pursuit by the cruiser had so terrorized
the mutineers that they had continued out across the Atlantic
for several days after losing her; but on discovering the
meager supply of water and provisions aboard, they had
turned back toward the east.
With no one on board who understood navigation, discussions
soon arose as to their whereabouts; and as three days'
sailing to the east did not raise land, they bore off to the
north, fearing that the high north winds that had prevailed
Tarzan of the Apes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: the lint and touched the lacerated flesh, while the face of the
wounded man, though pale and sickly, expressed, as he looked at the
girl, more pleasure than suffering. An artist would have admired,
involuntarily, this opposition of sentiments, together with the
contrasts produced by the whiteness of the linen and the bared arm to
the red and blue uniform of the officer.
At this moment a soft half-light pervaded the studio; but a parting
ray of the evening sunlight suddenly illuminated the spot where the
soldier sat, so that his noble, blanched face, his black hair, and his
clothes were bathed in its glow. The effect was simple enough, but to
the girl's Italian imagination it was a happy omen. The stranger
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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 The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth."
With these words, so brief, so simple, so full of reverent
feeling, he set aside the place of strife to be the resting place
of heroes, and then went back to his own great task--for which
he, too, was to give "the last full measure of devotion."
Up to within a very short time little had been heard about
Ulysses S. Grant, the man destined to become the most successful
general of the war. Like General McClellan, he was a graduate of
West Point; and also like McClellan, he had resigned from the
army after serving gallantly in the Mexican war. There the
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