| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: "Ah!" said Chauvelin, turning away with disgust from the
loathsome specimen of humanity before him.
The Jew, with characteristic patience, stood humbly on one
side, leaning on the knotted staff, his greasy, broad-brimmed hat
casting a deep shadow over his grimy face, waiting for the noble
Excellency to deign to put some questions to him.
"The citoyen tells me," said Chauvelin peremptorily to him,
"that you know something of my friend, the tall Englishman, whom I
desire to meet. . .MORBLEU! keep your distance, man," he added
hurriedly, as the Jew took a quick and eager step forward.
"Yes, your Excellency," replied the Jew, who spoke the
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: The clodpole stands with many a nod, -
With many a nod and many a grin,
He sees him cast his engine in.
'What have you caught?' the peasant cries.
'Nothing as yet,' the Fool replies.
MORAL TALES
Poem: I - ROBIN AND BEN: OR, THE PIRATE AND THE APOTHECARY
Come, lend me an attentive ear
A startling moral tale to hear,
Of Pirate Rob and Chemist Ben,
And different destinies of men.
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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 Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: ran as follows:--
"My Dear Child,--I am sending you the money that you asked for.
Make a good use of it. Even to save your life I could not raise
so large a sum a second time without your father's knowledge, and
there would be trouble about it. We should be obliged to mortgage
the land. It is impossible to judge of the merits of schemes of
which I am ignorant; but what sort of schemes can they be, that
you should fear to tell me about them? Volumes of explanation
would not have been needed; we mothers can understand at a word,
and that word would have spared me the anguish of uncertainty. I
do not know how to hide the painful impression that your letter
Father Goriot |
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 An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: have finished because there were difficulties about that road with the
township,--and he had therefore gone up to the chateau to report that
the work was done.
Monsieur d'Hauteserre had, in fact, put up a fence above the covered
way to prevent the township from taking possession of it. Michu seeing
the important part which the state of his clothes was likely to play,
invented this subterfuge. If, in law, truth is often like falsehood,
falsehood on the other hand has a very great resemblance to truth. The
defence and the prosecution both attached much importance to this
testimony, which became one of the leading points of the trial on
account of the vigor of the defence and the suspicions of the
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