| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: expect to be misunderstood and misrepresented by meaner minds.
That love which I bear to all creatures teaches me to forgive you.
Without such love, all plans of progress must fail. Is it not so,
Abel?'
"Shelldrake could only ejaculate the words, `Pity!' `Forgive?' in
his most contemptuous tone; while Mrs. Shelldrake, rocking
violently in her chair, gave utterance to that peculiar clucking,
`TS, TS, TS, TS,' whereby certain women express emotions too
deep for words.
"Abel, roused by Hollins's question, answered, with a sudden
energy--
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: MISTAKE: he did not call on Madame de Listomere for several days after
the adventure, thus allowing the thoughts of that virtuous young woman
to crystallize. There were other mistakes which I will here pass over
in silence, in order to give the ladies the pleasure of deducing them,
"ex professo," to those who are unable to guess them.
Eugene at last went to call upon the marquise; but, on attempting to
pass into the house, the porter stopped him, saying that Madame la
marquise was out. As he was getting back into his carriage the Marquis
de Listomere came home.
"Come in, Eugene," he said. "My wife is at home."
Pray excuse the marquis. A husband, however good he may be, never
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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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: impulses by which men abandon freedom, and seek for ties, are surely
nothing but a brief madness. In Godfrey's case there were further
reasons why his thoughts should be continually solicited by this one
point in his lot: his conscience, never thoroughly easy about Eppie,
now gave his childless home the aspect of a retribution; and as the
time passed on, under Nancy's refusal to adopt her, any retrieval of
his error became more and more difficult.
On this Sunday afternoon it was already four years since there had
been any allusion to the subject between them, and Nancy supposed
that it was for ever buried.
"I wonder if he'll mind it less or more as he gets older," she
Silas Marner |
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 The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: glad to be on their way to an appointed place. They did not stay
to
speak to him, but they looked at him often and spoke to one
another
as they looked; and now and then one of them would smile and
beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt they would like
him
to be with them.
There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed
each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the
long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and
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