| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: birth; that plenty of women were younger at forty than many a
girl of twenty; and, to come to the point, that a woman is no
older than she looks.
This theory set no limits to the age of love, so we struck out,
in all good faith, into a boundless sea. At length, when we had
portrayed our mistresses as young, charming, and devoted to us,
women of rank, women of taste, intellectual and clever; when we
had endowed them with little feet, a satin, nay, a delicately
fragrant skin, then came the admission--on his part that Madame
Such-an-one was thirty-eight years old, and on mine that I
worshiped a woman of forty. Whereupon, as if released on either
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: when I was your age I took medicine without a murmur. I said,
`Thank you, kind parents, for giving me bottles to make we
well.'"
He really thought this was true, and Wendy, who was now in her
night-gown, believed it also, and she said, to encourage
Michael, "That medicine you sometimes take, father, is much
nastier, isn't it?"
"Ever so much nastier," Mr. Darling said bravely, "and I would
take it now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn't lost the
bottle."
He had not exactly lost it; he had climbed in the dead of night
Peter Pan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: He was too late!
Both were prisoners; and, at the same time, Michael,
taken unawares as he was about to leap from the window,
fell into the hands of the Tartars!
END OF BOOK I
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
A TARTAR CAMP
AT a day's march from Kolyvan, several versts
beyond the town of Diachinks, stretches a
wide plain, planted here and there with great
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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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: It is the Juno brand; a glorious wine, fragrant, and full of gentle
might; a bottled-up happiness, put by for use; a golden liquid,
worth more than liquid gold; so rare and admirable, that veteran
wine-bibbers count it among their epochs to have tasted it!
It drives away the heart-ache, and substitutes no head-ache!
Could the Judge but quaff a glass, it might enable him to shake
off the unaccountable lethargy which (for the ten intervening
minutes, and five to boot, are already past) has made him such
a laggard at this momentous dinner. It would all but revive a
dead man! Would you like to sip it now, Judge Pyncheon?
Alas, this dinner. Have you really forgotten its true object?
House of Seven Gables |
