| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: And now--she gazed at him, calm, smiling,--perchance
Indifferent.
VII.
Indifferently turning his glance,
Alfred Vargrave encounter'd that gaze unaware.
O'er a bodice snow-white stream'd her soft dusky hair:
A rose-bud half blown in her hand; in her eyes
A half-pensive smile.
A sharp cry of surprise
Escaped from his lips: some unknown agitation.
An invincible trouble, a strange palpitation,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: Arnaut CAVASSE, complete with a rifle, knives, and other implements
and the name of Giorgio. And as they got up into the highlands
beyond Scutari they began to realize the deceitfulness of Podgoritza
and the real truth about khans. Their next one they reached after a
rainy evening, and it was a cavernous room with a floor of indurated
mud and full of eye-stinging wood-smoke and wind and the smell of
beasts, unpartitioned, with a weakly hostile custodian from whom no
food could be got but a little goat's flesh and bread. The meat
Giorgio stuck upon a skewer in gobbets like cats-meat and cooked
before the fire. For drink there was coffee and raw spirits.
Against the wall in one corner was a slab of wood rather like the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: and spoke in a half-awed voice.
"She's a-crying," said he.
I withheld from questions, and as he kept along by my side he said: "I'm
sorry. Do you think she's mad with Lin for what he's told her? She just
sat, and when she started crying he made me go away."
"I don't believe she's mad," I told Billy; and I sat down on my blanket,
he beside me, talking while the moon grew small as it rose over the
plain, and the light steadily shone in Jessamine's window. Soon young
Billy fell asleep, and I looked at him, thinking how in a way it was he
who had brought this trouble on the man who had saved him and loved him.
But that man had no such untender thoughts. Once more the door opened,
|
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 Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: pupil," said the Duchess.
"Of that I had no idea, madame," answered the law student, "so I
rashly came between them. In fact, I got on very well with the
lady's husband, and his wife tolerated me for a time until I took
it into my head to tell them that I knew some one of whom I had
just caught a glimpse as he went out by a back staircase, a man
who had given the Countess a kiss at the end of a passage."
"Who was it?" both women asked together.
"An old man who lives at the rate of two louis a month in the
Faubourg Saint-Marceau, where I, a poor student, lodge likewise.
He is a truly unfortunate creature, everybody laughs at him--we
Father Goriot |
