| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: honour that you will be wholly secret, not only on what has passed to-
night, but in the matter of the Appin case, and I let you go free."
"I will give it till to-morrow or any other near day that you may
please to set," said I. "I would not be thought too wily; but if I
gave the promise without qualification your lordship would have
attained his end."
"I had no thought to entrap you," said he.
"I am sure of that," said I.
"Let me see," he continued. "To-morrow is the Sabbath. Come to me on
Monday by eight in the morning, and give me our promise until then."
"Freely given, my lord," said I. "And with regard to what has fallen
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where
the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his
full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor,
with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound."
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than--as if a
shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a
floor of silver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic,
and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely
unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement
of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat.
His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole
The Fall of the House of Usher |
