| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: HOST. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the
least, keep your counsel.--MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
It becomes necessary to return to the detail of those
circumstances which accompanied, and indeed occasioned, the
sudden disappearance of Tressilian from the sign of the Black
Bear at Cumnor. It will be recollected that this gentleman,
after his rencounter with Varney, had returned to Giles Gosling's
caravansary, where he shut himself up in his own chamber,
demanded pen, ink, and paper, and announced his purpose to remain
private for the day. In the evening he appeared again in the
public room, where Michael Lambourne, who had been on the watch
Kenilworth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: to transfer to herself a portion of the sympathy she had so long
bestowed on Evelina. She had at last recognized her right to set
up some lost opportunities of her own; and once that dangerous
precedent established, they began to crowd upon her memory.
It was at this stage of Ann Eliza's transformation that
Evelina, looking up one evening from her work, said suddenly: "My!
She's stopped."
Ann Eliza, raising her eyes from a brown merino seam, followed
her sister's glance across the room. It was a Monday, and they
always wound the clock on Sundays.
"Are you sure you wound her yesterday, Evelina?"
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: which would, one way or the other, bring their experiment to an
unsuccessful and fatal termination. His companions stood
silently looking into space. The object grew rapidly as it
approached them, and by an optical illusion the projectile
seemed to be throwing itself before it.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, "we shall run into one another!"
Instinctively the travelers drew back. Their dread was great,
but it did not last many seconds. The asteroid passed several
hundred yards from the projectile and disappeared, not so much
from the rapidity of its course, as that its face being opposite
the moon, it was suddenly merged into the perfect darkness of space.
From the Earth to the Moon |
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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,
That some would sing, some other in their bills
Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries
He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.
'But this foul, grim, and urchin-spouted boar, 1105
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,
Ne'er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;
Witness the entertainment that he gave: 1108
If he did see his face, why then I know
He thought to kiss him, and hath killed him so.
''Tis true, 'tis true; thus was Adonis slain:
|
