| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: right," said Sammy, cheerfully, "we'll have it next
time. I'll be off now. Got a date at five o'clock."
He took a last look at the shaded green garden
and left, whistling in an off key an untuneful air from
a roofless farce comedy.
The next afternoon Ravenel, while polishing a
ragged line of a new sonnet, reclined by the window
overlooking the besieged garden of the unmercenary
baron. Suddenly he sat up, spilling two rhymes and
a syllable or two.,
Through the trees one window of the old mansion
The Voice of the City |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: so futile and melancholy an existence. The last Merovingians may
have looked not otherwise.
The Princess Amalia Seraphina, a daughter of the Grand-Ducal house
of Toggenburg-Tannhauser, would be equally inconsiderable if she
were not a cutting instrument in the hands of an ambitious man. She
is much younger than the Prince, a girl of two-and-twenty, sick with
vanity, superficially clever, and fundamentally a fool. She has a
red-brown rolling eye, too large for her face, and with sparks of
both levity and ferocity; her forehead is high and narrow, her
figure thin and a little stooping. Her manners, her conversation,
which she interlards with French, her very tastes and ambitions, are
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: And thus the heart, most sear'd to human pleasure,
Melts at the tear, joys in the smile, of woman. BEAUMONT
As the season advanced, the weather became more genial, and the
Recluse was more frequently found occupying the broad flat stone
in the front of his mansion. As he sate there one day, about the
hour of noon, a party of gentlemen and ladies, well mounted, and
numerously attended, swept across the heath at some distance from
his dwelling. Dogs, hawks, and led-horses swelled the retinue,
and the air resounded at intervals with the cheer of the hunters,
and the sound of horns blown by the attendants. The Recluse was
about to retire into his mansion at the sight of a train so
|
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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: Bell in the name of the Committee on Indian Affairs, February 24,
1830, in which is most logically established and most learnedly
proved, that "the fundamental principle that the Indians had no
right by virtue of their ancient possession either of will or
sovereignty, has never been abandoned either expressly or by
implication." In perusing this report, which is evidently drawn
up by an experienced hand, one is astonished at the facility with
which the author gets rid of all arguments founded upon reason
and natural right, which he designates as abstract and
theoretical principles. The more I contemplate the difference
between civilized and uncivilized man with regard to the
|
