| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: The man held his peace, the woman spoke no word, the young girl did
not even seem to breathe. The scratching of the pen on the paper
was audible.
The man grumbled, without pausing in his writing. "Canaille! canaille!
everybody is canaille!"
This variation to Solomon's exclamation elicited a sigh from the woman.
"Calm yourself, my little friend," she said. "Don't hurt yourself,
my dear. You are too good to write to all those people, husband."
Bodies press close to each other in misery, as in cold, but hearts
draw apart. This woman must have loved this man, to all appearance,
judging from the amount of love within her; but probably,
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: Commissioner, left alone with her on the private side of the
screen, seemed to be rearranging her mental impressions behind her
thoughtful immobility of a handsome old face. Men with grey
moustaches and full, healthy, vaguely smiling countenances
approached, circling round the screen; two mature women with a
matronly air of gracious resolution; a clean-shaved individual with
sunken cheeks, and dangling a gold-mounted eyeglass on a broad
black ribbon with an old-world, dandified effect. A silence
deferential, but full of reserves, reigned for a moment, and then
the great lady exclaimed, not with resentment, but with a sort of
protesting indignation:
The Secret Agent |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: then we has hard times to get enough to eat. There is
ten families on this land what the land-sharks is trying
to rob us of, and all of them got titles from me. I sold
to them cheap, and they aint paid out yet, but part of
them is, and if their land should be took from them I would
die. My grandfather was an honest man, and he helped
to build up this state, and he taught his children to be
honest, and how could I make it up to them who bought
me? Mr. Commissioner, if you let them land-sharks
take the roof from over my children and the little from
them as they has to live on, whoever again calls this state
|
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 Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: heredity; the National Guard, which puts on the same camp-bed the
corner grocer and the marquis; the abolition of the entails demanded
by a bourgeois lawyer; the Catholic Church deprived of its supremacy;
and all the other legislative inventions of August, 1830,--were to du
Bousquier the wisest possible application of the principles of 1793.
Since 1830 this man has been a receiver-general. He relied for his
advancement on his relations with the Duc d'Orleans, father of Louis
Philippe, and with Monsieur de Folmon, formerly steward to the
Duchess-dowager of Orleans. He receives about eighty thousand francs a
year. In the eyes of the people about him Monsieur du Bousquier is a
man of means,--a respectable man, steady in his principles, upright,
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