| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: The carriage could not be raised; the horses were taken out with
serious and, as it proved, irreparable loss of time. The shock of the
overturn was so violent that the young countess, roused from her
lethargy, threw off her coverings and rose.
"Philippe, where are we?" she cried in a gentle voice, looking about
her.
"Only five hundred feet from the bridge. We are now going to cross the
Beresina, Stephanie, and once across I will not torment you any more;
you shall sleep; we shall be in safety, and can reach Wilna easily.--
God grant that she may never know what her life has cost!" he thought.
"Philippe! you are wounded!"
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: excellent creature. "I could forgive you being sick," he said at
last, as a portion of the wall fell out, "but I cannot bear your
being such a fool." And with that he heaved up his fireman's axe,
for he was eminently just, and clove the sick man to the bed.
V. - THE DEVIL AND THE INNKEEPER.
ONCE upon a time the devil stayed at an inn, where no one knew him,
for they were people whose education had been neglected. He was
bent on mischief, and for a time kept everybody by the ears. But
at last the innkeeper set a watch upon the devil and took him in
the fact.
The innkeeper got a rope's end.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: veld between our station and Maraisfontein many pauw and koran--that is,
big and small bustards--were to be found, to say nothing of occasional
buck, and I was allowed to carry a gun, which even in those days I could
use fairly well. So to Maraisfontein I rode on the appointed day,
attended by a Hottentot after-rider, a certain Hans, of whom I shall
have a good deal to tell. I enjoyed very goof sport on the road,
arriving at the stead laden with one pauw, two koran, and a little
klipspringer buck which I had been lucky enough to shoot as it bounded
out of some rocks in front of me.
There was a peach orchard planted round Maraisfontein, which just then
was a mass of lovely pink blossom, and as I rode through it slowly, not
Marie |
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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: married to that Jack-in-the-box. He didn't care.
There was a man now (he told me boastfully) to
whom he could sing and talk in the language of his
country, and show how to dance by-and-by.
"But I don't know. To me he appeared to have
grown less springy of step, heavier in body, less
keen of eye. Imagination, no doubt; but it seems
to me now as if the net of fate had been drawn
closer round him already.
"One day I met him on the footpath over the
Talfourd Hill. He told me that 'women were fun-
Amy Foster |
