| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady,
whom too, I come to love. For her, I am ashamed to say so much,
but I say it in kindness, I gave what you gave, the blood of my veins.
I gave it, I who was not, like you, her lover, but only her
physician and her friend. I gave her my nights and days,
before death, after death, and if my death can do her good even now,
when she is the dead UnDead, she shall have it freely."
He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much
affected by it.
He took the old man's hand and said in a broken voice,
"Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand,
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: have his confidence. He told me, before... before you made it
impossible."
He looked away, chin in hand, his glance thoughtful, disturbed,
almost wistful.
"There is," he said slowly, musingly. "a singular fatality at
work between that man and me, bringing us ever each by turns
athwart the other's path... "
He sighed; then swung to face her again, speaking more briskly:
"Mademoiselle, until this moment I had no knowledge - no suspicion
of this thing. But..." He broke off, considered, and then
shrugged. "If I wronged him, I did so unconsciously. It would be
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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 The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: tained by stories from the wild, roving lives of its
own members. Tales of adventure, love, war and death
in every known corner of the world; and the ten cap-
tains told, each, his story of how he came to be of
Torn; and thus, with fighting enough by day to keep
them good humored, the winter passed, and spring
came with the ever wondrous miracle of awakening life,
with soft zephyrs, warm rain, and sunny skies.
Through all the winter Father Claude had been ex-
pecting to hear from Simon de Montfort but not until
now did he receive a message which told the good
The Outlaw of Torn |
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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: time to become.
III
In the hall I was met by the housekeeper, who informed me that,
owing to a misunderstanding about dates, a gentleman had arrived
whom Lucy had not expected at that time, and that in consequence my
room had been changed. My things had been put into the East Room,--
the haunted room,--the room of the Closed Cabinet, as I remembered
with a certain sense of pleased importance, though without any
surprise. It stood apart from the other guest-rooms, at the end of
the passage from which opened George and Lucy's private apartment;
and as it was consequently disagreeable to have a stranger there,
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