| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: Crampton, who has since been Postmaster-General, rich and very
important in Rockshire, and his younger brother Edward, who has
specialised in history and become one of those unimaginative men of
letters who are the glory of latter-day England. Then there was
Lewis, further towards Kensington, where his cousins the Solomons
and the Hartsteins lived, a brilliant representative of his race,
able, industrious and invariably uninspired, with a wife a little in
revolt against the racial tradition of feminine servitude and
inclined to the suffragette point of view, and Bunting Harblow, an
old blue, and with an erratic disposition well under the control of
the able little cousin he had married. I had known all these men,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the
drawn anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded
eyes and the lids red stained--perhaps you know that look.
"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said.
"The thing's killing me."
"Dreams?"
"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so
vivid . . . . this--" (he indicated the landscape that went
streaming by the window) "seems unreal in comparison! I can
scarcely remember who I am, what business I am on . . . ."
He paused. "Even now--"
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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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: "The king called an assembly at Lyon of all the princes of his
blood, all the knights of his order, and other great personages of
the kingdom; also the legal and papal nuncio, the cardinals who
were at his court, together with the ambassadors of England,
Scotland, Portugal, Venice, Ferrara, and others; also all the
princes and noble strangers, both Italian and German, who were
then residing at his court in great numbers. These all being
assembled, he caused to be read to them, in presence of each
other, from beginning to end, the trial of the unhappy man who
poisoned Monseigneur the late dauphin,--with all the
interrogatories, confessions, confrontings, and other ceremonies
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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 Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: Jerome honestly means to marry me--"
"But then," said Rosalie, "why meet at night?"
Mariette was dumfounded, and could make no reply.
"Listen, Mariette; I am in love too! In secret and without any return.
I am, after all, my father's and mother's only child. You have more to
hope for from me than from any one else in the world--"
"Certainly, mademoiselle, and you may count on us for life or death,"
exclaimed Mariette, rejoiced at the unexpected turn of affairs.
"In the first place, silence for silence," said Rosalie. "I will not
marry Monsieur de Soulas; but one thing I will have, and must have; my
help and favor are yours on one condition only."
Albert Savarus |
