| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: us, we cannot possibly sail until it has changed."
Marguerite became deadly pale. She had not foreseen this.
Nature herself was playing her a horrible, cruel trick. Percy was in
danger, and she could not go to him, because the wind happened to blow
from the coast of France.
"But we must go!--we must!" she repeated with strange,
persistent energy, "you know, we must go!--can't you find a way?"
"I have been down to the shore already," he said, "and had a
talk to one or two skippers. It is quite impossible to set sail
to-night, so every sailor assured me. No one," he added, looking
significantly at Marguerite, "NO ONE could possibly put out of Dover
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Like that of a child of ten; -
And there on the cliff stood the father,
Last of the dwarfish men.
"True was the word I told you:
Only my son I feared;
For I doubt the sapling courage
That goes without the beard.
But now in vain is the torture,
Fire shall never avail:
Here dies in my bosom
The secret of Heather Ale."
Ballads |
