| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: ship. Only the wind is stronger, the clouds seem denser and more
overwhelming, the waves appear to have grown bigger and more
threatening during the night. The hours, whose minutes are marked
by the crash of the breaking seas, slip by with the screaming,
pelting squalls overtaking the ship as she runs on and on with
darkened canvas, with streaming spars and dripping ropes. The
down-pours thicken. Preceding each shower a mysterious gloom, like
the passage of a shadow above the firmament of gray clouds, filters
down upon the ship. Now and then the rain pours upon your head in
streams as if from spouts. It seems as if your ship were going to
be drowned before she sank, as if all atmosphere had turned to
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: last towel in the dressing-room of the sleeper.
The porter came and brushed the collection of soot on the window-sill
off to the left knee of my trousers. I removed it with an air of
apology. The temperature was eighty-eight. One of the dotted-veiled
ladies demanded the closing of two more ventilators, and spoke loudly
of Interlaken. I leaned back idly in chair No. 7, and looked with
the tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head just
visible above the back of No. 9.
Suddenly No. 9 hurled a book to the floor between his chair and the
window, and, looking, I saw that it was The Rose-Lady and Trevelyan,
one of the best-selling novels of the present day. And then the
Options |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'I sometimes fancy I'm not much better than a fool,' sighed
John.
'My dear John,' said she, 'not much!'
He looked at her, and his eye fell. A certain anger rose
within him; here was a Flora he disowned; she was hard; she
was of a set colour; a settled, mature, undecorative manner;
plain of speech, plain of habit - he had come near saying,
plain of face. And this changeling called herself by the
same name as the many-coloured, clinging maid of yore; she of
the frequent laughter, and the many sighs, and the kind,
stolen glances. And to make all worse, she took the upper
|
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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: swallows so, or especially martins; this bird-angler standing on the top
of a steeple to do it, and with the line twice so long as I have spoken of.
And let me tell you, scholar, that both Martins and Bleaks be most
excellent meat
And let me tell you, that I have known a Heron, that did constantly
frequent one place, caught with a hook baited with a big minnow or a
small gudgeon. The line and hook must be strong: and tied to some
loose staff, so big as she cannot fly away with it: a line not exceeding
two yards.
The fourth day-continued
Is of nothing, or of nothing worth
|
