| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: left of his fiancee quite alone.
The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity and exerted
himself to restore things to the condition in which we left
them the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks
to his feelings as we could avoid were saved.
Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken. Even his stalwart manhood
seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his much-tried emotions.
He had, I knew, been very genuinely and devotedly attached to his father,
and to lose him, and at such a time, was a bitter blow to him.
With me he was warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he was sweetly courteous.
But I could not help seeing that there was some constraint with him.
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: road side, and when he sees a traveller, sings, and claps his wings,
making many motions to invite him to follow him, and when he
perceives him coming, flies before him from tree to tree, till he
comes to the place where the bees have stored their treasure, and
then begins to sing melodiously. The Abyssin takes the honey,
without failing to leave part of it for the bird, to reward him for
his information. This kind of honey I have often tasted, and do not
find that it differs from the other sorts in anything but colour; it
is somewhat blacker. The great quantity of honey that is gathered,
and a prodigious number of cows that is kept here, have often made
me call Abyssinia a land of honey and butter.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: all that is sinful or hurtful. But making a business of it leads
to emaciation of character, unless one feeds largely also on the
more nutritious diet of active sympathetic benevolence.
- I don't believe one word of what you are saying, - spoke up the
angular female in black bombazine.
I am sorry you disbelieve it, Madam, - I said, and added softly to
my next neighbor, - but you prove it.
The young fellow sitting near me winked; and the divinity-student
said, in an undertone, - OPTIME DICTUM.
Your talking Latin, - said I, - reminds me of an odd trick of one
of my old tutors. He read so much of that language, that his
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: "And Miss Lombard still lives in her father's house?"
"Yes, signore; she is still there."
"And the Leonardo--"
"The Leonardo, also, is still there."
The next day, as Wyant entered the House of the Dead Hand, he
remembered Count Ottaviano's injunction to ring twice, and smiled
mournfully to think that so much subtlety had been vain. But
what could have prevented the marriage? If Doctor Lombard's
death had been long delayed, time might have acted as a
dissolvent, or the young lady's resolve have failed; but it
seemed impossible that the white heat of ardor in which Wyant had
|
