| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: starving - there's the touch. You're a man, they tell me,
Mr. Archer, that has met with some reverses?'
'I have met with many,' replied Mr. Archer.
'Ha!' said Jonathan. 'None reckons but the last. Now, see;
I tried to make this girl here understand me.'
'Uncle,' said Nance, 'what should Mr. Archer care for your
concerns? He hath troubles of his own, and came to be at
peace, I think.'
'I tried to make her understand me,' repeated Jonathan
doggedly; 'and now I'll try you. Do you think this world is
fair?'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: look, I promise you: I retreated again, and when my second match
had ended, I struck my third. It had almost burned through when
I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the edge,
for the throb of the great pump below made me giddy. Then I felt
sideways for the projecting hooks, and, as I did so, my feet were
grasped from behind, and I was violently tugged backward. I lit
my last match . . . and it incontinently went out. But I had my
hand on the climbing bars now, and, kicking violently, I
disengaged myself from the clutches of the Morlocks and was
speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and
blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed me for
The Time Machine |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: solicitor, asking him to come on the morrow, and she also
determines to destroy immediately the will which she has just
made. She keeps the fatal letter."
"It was to discover that letter, then, that her husband forced
the lock of the despatch-case?"
"Yes, and from the enormous risk he ran we can see how fully he
realized its importance. That letter excepted, there was
absolutely nothing to connect him with the crime."
"There's only one thing I can't make out, why didn't he destroy
it at once when he got hold of it?"
"Because he did not dare take the biggest risk of all--that of
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: commencing at my own door, without going by any house, without
crossing a road except where the fox and the mink do: first along
by the river, and then the brook, and then the meadow and the
woodside. There are square miles in my vicinity which have no
inhabitant. From many a hill I can see civilization and the
abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are scarcely more
obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and his affairs,
church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures
and agriculture even politics, the most alarming of them all--I
am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape.
Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower highway
Walking |
