| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: bizarre shape. Professor Moorsom coming up from the garden with a
book under his arm and a white parasol held over his bare head,
found him there and, closing the parasol, leaned over by his side
with a remark on the increasing heat of the season. Renouard
assented and changed his position a little; the other, after a
short silence, administered unexpectedly a question which, like the
blow of a club on the head, deprived Renouard of the power of
speech and even thought, but, more cruel, left him quivering with
apprehension, not of death but of everlasting torment. Yet the
words were extremely simple.
"Something will have to be done soon. We can't remain in a state
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: exposed to the inroad of such stormy elements?" thought Maria,
while the poor maniac's strain was still breathing on her ear,
and sinking into her very soul.
Towards the evening, Jemima brought her Rousseau's Heloise;
and she sat reading with eyes and heart, till the return of her
guard to extinguish the light. One instance of her kindness was,
the permitting Maria to have one, till her own hour of retiring to
rest. She had read this work long since; but now it seemed to open
a new world to her--the only one worth inhabiting. Sleep was not
to be wooed; yet, far from being fatigued by the restless rotation
of thought, she rose and opened her window, just as the thin watery
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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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: don't think it was very nice of her brothers to starve me to death,
though I did kill her.'
'Starve you to death? Oh, Mr. Ghost, I mean Sir Simon, are you
hungry? I have a sandwich in my case. Would you like it?'
'No, thank you, I never eat anything now; but it is very kind of
you, all the same, and you are much nicer than the rest of your
horrid, rude, vulgar, dishonest family.'
'Stop!' cried Virginia, stamping her foot, 'it is you who are rude,
and horrid, and vulgar, and as for dishonesty, you know you stole
the paints out of my box to try and furbish up that ridiculous
blood-stain in the library. First you took all my reds, including
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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 Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: "Lansquenet is another of the thousand facets of Paris as it is," said
Leon. "And therefore, cousin, I intend to present you to-night in the
salon of a duchess,--a duchess of the rue Saint-Georges, where you
will see the aristocracy of the lorettes, and probably be able to win
your lawsuit. But it is quite impossible to present you anywhere with
that mop of Pyrenean hair; you look like a porcupine; and therefore
we'll take you close by, Place de la Bourse, to Marius, another of our
comedians--"
"Who is he?"
"I'll tell you his tale," said Bixiou. "In the year 1800 a Toulousian
named Cabot, a young wig-maker devoured by ambition, came to Paris,
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