| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: and high overhead, and the light had not so much gone as changed
from definition and the blazing glitter and reflections of solidity
to a translucent and unsubstantial clearness. The jungle that
bordered the little encampment north, south, and west seemed to have
crept a little nearer, enriched itself with blackness, taken to
itself voices.
(Surely it had been silent during the day.)
A warm, faintly-scented breeze just stirred the dead grass and the
leaves. In the day the air had been still.
Immediately after the sunset there had been a great crying of
peacocks in the distance, but that was over now; the crickets,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: that night I was filled with a gloomy fury of the nerves. I had
killed him; he had done his utmost to protect me; I had seen him
with that awful smile. And so illogical and useless is this
sentiment of remorse, that I was ready, at a word or a look, to
quarrel with somebody else. I presume the disposition of my mind
was imprinted on my face; and when, a little after, I overtook,
saluted and addressed the doctor, he looked on me with
commiseration and surprise.
I had asked him if it was true.
'Yes,' he said, 'the fellow's gone.'
'Did he suffer much?' I asked.
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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 The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: you had gone into the Drapery Emporium--which is really only
magnificent for shop--of Messrs. Antrobus & Co.--a perfectly
fictitious "Co.," by the bye--of Putney, on the 14th of August,
1895, had turned to the right-hand side, where the blocks of
white linen and piles of blankets rise up to the rail from which
the pink and blue prints depend, you might have been served by
the central figure of this story that is now beginning. He would
have come forward, bowing and swaying, he would have extended two
hands with largish knuckles and enormous cuffs over the counter,
and he would have asked you, protruding a pointed chin and
without the slightest anticipation of pleasure in his manner,
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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 Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: world. The youngest of the elders, a man of about fifty, had been
bred from infancy in a Shaker village, and was said never to have
clasped a woman's hand in his own, and to have no conception of a
closer tie than the cold fraternal one of the sect. Old Father
Ephraim was the most awful character of all. In his youth he had
been a dissolute libertine, but was converted by Mother Ann
herself, and had partaken of the wild fanaticism of the early
Shakers. Tradition whispered, at the firesides of the village,
that Mother Ann had been compelled to sear his heart of flesh
with a red-hot iron before it could be purified from earthly
passions.
Twice Told Tales |
