| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: explained. "But the lady - "
The young lady, however, declined and we went on together. Once,
when the trolley line was in sight, she got a pebble in her low
shoe, and we sat down under a tree until she found the cause of
the trouble.
"I - I don't know what I should have done without you," I blundered.
"Moral support and - and all that. Do you know, my first conscious
thought after the wreck was of relief that you had not been hurt?"
She was sitting beside me, where a big chestnut tree shaded the road,
and I surprised a look of misery on her face that certainly my words
had not been meant to produce.
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: has been my stumbling-block from first to last. I could pocket the
whole of these pretty pebbles, if I chose, and I should like to see
you dare to say a word; but I think I must have taken a liking to
you; for I declare I have not the heart to shave you so close. So,
do you see, in pure kind feeling, I propose that we divide; and
these," indicating the two heaps, "are the proportions that seem to
me just and friendly. Do you see any objection, Mr. Hartley, may I
ask? I am not the man to stick upon a brooch."
"But, sir," cried Harry, "what you propose to me is impossible.
The jewels are not mine, and I cannot share what is another's, no
matter with whom, nor in what proportions."
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: Her correspondence with her aunt Bertram was her only
concern of higher interest.
As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all make
amends for deficiencies at home, there were none within
the circle of her father's and mother's acquaintance
to afford her the smallest satisfaction: she saw nobody
in whose favour she could wish to overcome her own
shyness and reserve. The men appeared to her all coarse,
the women all pert, everybody underbred; and she gave
as little contentment as she received from introductions
either to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies who
Mansfield Park |
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 Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: fhtagn."
This verbal jumble was the key to the recollection
which excited and disturbed Professor Angell. He questioned the
sculptor with scientific minuteness; and studied with frantic
intensity the bas-relief on which the youth had found himself
working, chilled and clad only in his night clothes, when waking
had stolen bewilderingly over him. My uncle blamed his old age,
Wilcox afterwards said, for his slowness in recognizing both hieroglyphics
and pictorial design. Many of his questions seemed highly out
of place to his visitor, especially those which tried to connect
the latter with strange cults or societies; and Wilcox could not
Call of Cthulhu |
