| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: watches over me!'"
"Alas, alas, what a fearful extremity!"
"Valentine, would you rather denounce your stepmother?"
"I would rather die a hundred times -- oh, yes, die!"
"No, you will not die; but will you promise me, whatever
happens, that you will not complain, but hope?"
"I will think of Maximilian!"
"You are my own darling child, Valentine! I alone can save
you, and I will." Valentine in the extremity of her terror
joined her hands, -- for she felt that the moment had
arrived to ask for courage, -- and began to pray, and while
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: "And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn," said
Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, "would you class the female
author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman /comme il faut/?"
"When she has no genius, she is a woman /comme il n'en faut pas/,"
Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance, which
might make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin. "This
epigram is not mine, but Napoleon's," he added.
"You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score," said Canalis,
with an emphatic tone and gesture. "It was one of his weaknesses to be
jealous of literary genius--for he had his mean points. Who will ever
explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: dead. She had never understood the talk that at first had gone on
about her, when Bassett and Harrison Miller, and once or twice the
psycho-analyst David had consulted in town, had got together in
David's bedroom. The mind was the mind, and Dick was Dick. This
thing about habit, over which David pored at night when he should
have been sleeping, or brought her in to listen to, with an air of
triumphant vindication, meant nothing to her.
A man properly trained in right habits of thinking and of action
could not think wrong and go wrong, David argued. He even went
further. He said that love was a habit, and that love would bring
Dick back to him. That he could not forget them.
The Breaking Point |
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 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: we have not only lost that lovely darling boy, but this poor girl,
whom I sincerely love, is to be torn away by even a worse fate.
If she is condemned, I never shall know joy more. But she will not,
I am sure she will not; and then I shall be happy again,
even after the sad death of my little William."
"She is innocent, my Elizabeth," said I, "and that shall be proved;
fear nothing, but let your spirits be cheered by the assurance of
her acquittal."
"How kind and generous you are! every one else believes in her guilt,
and that made me wretched, for I knew that it was impossible:
and to see every one else prejudiced in so deadly a manner
Frankenstein |
