| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: The Vaugirard cemetery formed an exception among the cemeteries
of Paris. It had its peculiar usages, just as it had its carriage
entrance and its house door, which old people in the quarter,
who clung tenaciously to ancient words, still called the porte cavaliere
and the porte pietonne.[16] The Bernardines-Benedictines of the Rue
Petit-Picpus had obtained permission, as we have already stated,
to be buried there in a corner apart, and at night, the plot of land
having formerly belonged to their community. The grave-diggers being
thus bound to service in the evening in summer and at night in winter,
in this cemetery, they were subjected to a special discipline.
The gates of the Paris cemeteries closed, at that epoch, at sundown,
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: are not going to jilt me without a reason. Do you mean to deny
everything? Are you going to say, for instance, that I never sent
you any violets? Or gave you my Photograph, with an--er--touching
inscription on it?" Then, appealingly, "You can't mean to deny that
Photograph, Bab!"
And then that lanky wretch of an Eddie Perkins brought me a toy
Baloon, and I had to dance, with my heart crushed.
Nevertheless, I ate a fair supper. I felt that I needed Strength.
It was quite a grown-up supper, with boullion and creamed chicken
and baked ham and sandwitches, among other things. But of course
they had to show it was a `kid' party, after all. For instead of
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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 Glasses by Henry James: compelled to make great efforts. I had studied her face for a
particular beauty; I had lived with that beauty and reproduced it;
but I knew what belonged to my trade well enough to be sure it was
gone for ever.
CHAPTER XII
I was soon called back to Folkestone; but Mrs. Meldrum and her
young friend had already left England, finding to that end every
convenience on the spot and not having had to come up to town. My
thoughts however were so painfully engaged there that I should in
any case have had little attention for them: the event occurred
that was to bring my series of visits to a close. When this high
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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 Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: he escaped being sent back to slavery and torture. He told me that New York
was then full of Southerners returning from the Northern watering-places;
that the colored people of New York were not to be trusted; that there were
hired men of my own color who would betray me for a few dollars;
that there were hired men ever on the lookout for fugitives;
that I must trust no man with my secret; that I must not think
of going either upon the wharves or into any colored boarding-house,
for all such places were closely watched; that he was himself unable
to help me; and, in fact, he seemed while speaking to me to fear lest
I myself might be a spy and a betrayer. Under this apprehension,
as I suppose, he showed signs of wishing to be rid of me,
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