| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: your success. You'd better call on Miss Carrington
early to-morrow and strike her for the part. I don't
see how she can keep from being satisfied with your
exhibition of ability."
At 11.45 A. M. on the next day Highsmith, hand-
some, dressed in the latest mode, confident, with a
fuchsia in his button-bole, sent up his card to Miss
Carrington in her select apartment hotel.
He was shown up and received by the actress's
French maid.
"I am sorree," said Mlle. Hortense, "but I am to
The Voice of the City |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: head, his fine hands lying still in his lap. The collar of lawn
which fell over his cape was quite plain, but the skirts of his
red robe were covered with rich lace, and the order of the Holy
Ghost, a white dove on a gold cross, shone on his breast. Among
the multitudinous papers on the great table near him I saw a
sword and pistols; and some tapestry that covered a little table
behind him failed to hide a pair of spurred riding-boots. But as
I advanced he looked towards me with the utmost composure; with a
face mild and almost benign, in which I strove in vain to read
the traces of last night's passion. So that it flashed across me
that if this man really stood (and afterwards I knew that he did)
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: thus gaining time, she hoped to come safe and sound to the end of the
national troubles. At this period, the royalists in the interior of
France expected day by day that the Revolution would be ended on the
morrow. This conviction was the ruin of very many of them.
In spite of these difficulties, the countess had maintained her
independence very cleverly until the day when, by an inexplicable
imprudence, she closed her doors to her usual evening visitors. Madame
de Dey inspired so genuine and deep an interest, that the persons who
called upon her that evening expressed extreme anxiety on being told
that she was unable to receive them. Then, with that frank curiosity
which appears in provincial manners, they inquired what misfortune,
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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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: saw me, she said,--
"What is it?"
I did not answer; my eyes were moist. The night before, Pauline had
understood my sorrows, as she now understood my joy, with the magical
sensitiveness of a harp that obeys the variations of the atmosphere.
Human life has glorious moments. Together we walked in silence along
the beach. The sky was cloudless, the sea without a ripple; others
might have thought them merely two blue surfaces, the one above the
other, but we--we who heard without the need of words, we who could
evoke between these two infinitudes the illusions that nourish youth,
--we pressed each other's hands at every change in the sheet of water
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