| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: would be left with twelvepence-halfpenny in the world. What was
even worse, he had now been forced to bring his uncle up to
Bloomsbury. 'No use for poor Johnny in Hampshire now,' he
reflected. 'And how the farce is to be kept up completely passes
me. At Browndean it was just possible; in Bloomsbury it seems
beyond human ingenuity--though I suppose it's what Michael does.
But then he has accomplices--that Scotsman and the whole gang.
Ah, if I had accomplices!'
Necessity is the mother of the arts. Under a spur so immediate,
Morris surprised himself by the neatness and dispatch of his new
forgery, and within three-fourths of an hour had handed it to Mr
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: "Pshaw! They did not know how to look."
"But how will you look?"
"I will not look."
"What then?"
"I will get her to show me."
"But she will refuse."
"She will not be able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is
hcr carriage. Now carry out my orders to the letter."
As he spoke the gleam of the side-lights of a carriage came round
the curve of the avenue. It was a smart little landau which
rattled up to the door of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up, one of
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: distress, they pointed out the men's faces to each other, and laughed
at the grotesque expressions on the faces of the crew who were
straining every muscle; but in the fore part of the boat the soldier,
the peasant, and the old beggar woman watched the sailors with the
sympathy naturally felt by toilers who live by the sweat of their brow
and know the rough struggle, the strenuous excitement of effort. These
folk, moreover, whose lives were spent in the open air, had all seen
the warnings of danger in the sky, and their faces were grave. The
young mother rocked her child, singing an old hymn of the Church for a
lullaby.
"If we ever get there at all," the soldier remarked to the peasant,
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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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: quarter full of its own harmonies, where his happy childhood had been
spent, where lived his promised bride, Babette Lallier, where all
things promised him a sweet and full existence; he saw the past; he
saw the future, and he sacrificed it, or, at any rate, he staked it
all. Such were the men of that day.
"We need ask no more," said the impetuous sailor; "we know him for one
of our /saints/. If the Scotchman had not done the deed he would kill
us that infamous Minard."
"Yes," said Lecamus, "my life belongs to the church; I shall give it
with joy for the triumph of the Reformation, on which I have seriously
reflected. I know that what we do is for the happiness of the peoples.
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