| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: king wished to be called Louis the Just and Louis the Chaste.
Posterity will find a difficulty in understanding this character,
which history explains only by facts and never by reason.
But when the cardinal added that not only Mme. de Chevreuse had
been in Paris, but still further, that the queen had renewed with
her one of those mysterious correspondences which at that time
was named a CABAL; when he affirmed that he, the cardinal, was
about to unravel the most closely twisted thread of this
intrigue; that at the moment of arresting in the very act, with
all the proofs about her, the queen's emissary to the exiled
duchess, a Musketeer had dared to interrupt the course of justice
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: "Then she pointed to the third, a sort of dwarf, with protruding,
round, stupid eyes, which she rolled incessantly in all
directions. 'This is La Putois, an idiot. She is only
forty-four.'
"I bowed to the three women as if I were being presented to some
Royal Highness, and turning to the priest I said: 'You are an
excellent man, Monsieur l'Abbe, and we all owe you a debt of
gratitude.'
"Everybody was laughing, in fact, except Marchas, who seemed
furious, and just then Karl Massouligny cried: 'Sister
Saint-Benedict, supper is on the table!'
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: "but to speak the truth, it happened some days sooner than the
apparition was exhibited."
"And so there remained a possibility," said I, "that by some
secret and speedy communication the artist might have received
early intelligence of that incident."
"The incredulous pretended so," replied my aunt.
"What became of the adept?" demanded I.
"Why, a warrant came down shortly afterwards to arrest him for
high treason, as an agent of the Chevalier St. George; and Lady
Bothwell, recollecting the hints which had escaped the doctor, an
ardent friend of the Protestant succession, did then call to
|
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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: much as noticed her. He would have liked to invent something, get
her to make-believe with him that some passage of a romantic or
critical kind HAD originally occurred. He was really almost
reaching out in imagination--as against time--for something that
would do, and saying to himself that if it didn't come this sketch
of a fresh start would show for quite awkwardly bungled. They
would separate, and now for no second or no third chance. They
would have tried and not succeeded. Then it was, just at the turn,
as he afterwards made it out to himself, that, everything else
failing, she herself decided to take up the case and, as it were,
save the situation. He felt as soon as she spoke that she had been
|
