| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little man standing with
folded arms nursing his cane. He had a handsome face, an artfully
poised hat, a glass in one eye, and a nosegay in his buttonhole.
Winterbourne looked at him a moment and then said, "Do you mean
to speak to that man?"
"Do I mean to speak to him? Why, you don't suppose I mean
to communicate by signs?"
"Pray understand, then," said Winterbourne, "that I intend
to remain with you."
Daisy stopped and looked at him, without a sign of troubled
consciousness in her face, with nothing but the presence of her
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: one in the morning, when we had finished our books and were about to
undress, we heard a noise in our neighbor's room. He got up, struck a
match, and lighted his dip. I got on to the drawers again, and I then
saw Marcas seated at his table and copying law-papers.
His room was about half the size of ours; the bed stood in a recess by
the door, for the passage ended there, and its breadth was added to
his garret; but the ground on which the house was built was evidently
irregular, for the party-wall formed an obtuse angle, and the room was
not square. There was no fireplace, only a small earthenware stove,
white blotched with green, of which the pipe went up through the roof.
The window, in the skew side of the room, had shabby red curtains. The
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: to ask themselves. If I alone had come to think in this way of
Lucien, I might perhaps have spared you the pain which my plain
speaking will give you; but to evade the questions put by your
anxiety, and to answer a cry of anguish like your letter with
commonplaces, seemed to me alike unworthy of you and of me, whom
you esteem too highly; and besides, those of my friends who knew
Lucien are unanimous in their judgment. So it appeared to me to be
a duty to put the truth before you, terrible though it may be.
Anything may be expected of Lucien, anything good or evil. That is
our opinion, and this letter is summed up in that sentence. If the
vicissitudes of his present way of life (a very wretched and
|
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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: grave, in his ordinary port.
The house was quite dark; only a light in one of the lower
windows,--the library, he thought. The broad field he was
crossing sloped down to the house, so that, as he came nearer, he
saw the little room quite plainly in the red glow of the fire
within, the curtains being undrawn. He had a keen eye; did not
fail to see the marks of poverty about the place, the gateless
fences, even the bare room with its worn and patched carpet:
noted it all with a triumphant gleam of satisfaction. There was
a black shadow passing and repassing the windows: he waited a
moment looking at it, then came more slowly towards them,
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
