| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: motions of an animal, uttering a few smothered groans, which ceased
when the axe fell. The head was off at the first blow. Marche-a-Terre
took it by the hair, left the room, sought and found a large nail in
the rough casing of the door, and wound the hair about it; leaving the
bloody head, the eyes of which he did not even close, to hang there.
The two Chouans then washed their hands, without the least haste, in a
pot full of water, picked up their hats and guns, and jumped the gate,
whistling the "Ballad of the Captain." Pille-Miche began to sing in a
hoarse voice as he reached the field the last verses of that rustic
song, their melody floating on the breeze:--
"At the first town
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: swelling for her entrance.
"You ain't my MOTHER, Jim, you're my GRANDmother," she taunted;
and, with a crack of her whip she was away on Bingo's back.
"It's the spirit of the dead one that's got into her," Jim
mumbled as he turned away, still seeing the flash in the
departing girl's eyes.
Chapter III
Polly and Bingo always made the audience "sit up" when they swept
into the ring. She was so young, so gaily clad, so light and
joyous in all her poses. She seemed scarcely to touch the back
of the white horse, as they dashed round the ring in the glare of
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: qui se passaient chez vous! Rien de plus interessant que ces
contacts qui etaient des contrastes, et que ces rencontres d'idees
qui etaient des choses; rien de si attachant que les echappees de
coeur ou d'esprit auxquelles ces petits conflits donnaient a tout
moment cours. C'est dans ces conditions que, pendant son sejour a
Paris en 1878, je conduisis un peu partout mon nouvel ami. Nous
allƒmes chez Madame Edmond Adam, ou il vit passer beaucoup d'hommes
politiques avec lesquels il causa. Mais c'est chez les ministres
qu'il fut interesse. Le moment etait, d'ailleurs, curieux en
France. Je me rappelle que, lorsque je le presentai au Ministre du
Commerce, il fit cette spirituelle repartie: 'C'est la seconde
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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 The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: straight-backed chair, with her large, capable hands
on her knees.
"I believed in you as much as you'd let me," she went on,
indifferently, almost wearily. "But I don't see that it
mattered to you whether I did or didn't. You went your own
way: you did what you wanted to do. What had I to do
with it? I don't suppose I even knew what part of the
world you were in more than once in two or three years.
How should I know whether you were going to succeed,
when I didn't even know what it was you were at? Certainly
you hadn't succeeded here in London--but elsewhere you
The Market-Place |
