| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: my father's fortune to make an eldest son of me. My father dreams of a
peerage, like all who vote for the ministry. Indeed, it is promised
him," he added in an undertone. "After saving up a little capital my
brother joined a banking firm, and I hear he has just effected a
speculation in Brazil which may make him a millionaire. You see me in
the highest spirits at having been able, by my diplomatic connections,
to contribute to his success. I am impatiently expecting a dispatch
from the Brazilian Legation, which will help to lift the cloud from
his brow. What do you think of him?"
"Well, your brother's face does not look to me like that of a man
busied with money matters."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: his defection, soon let the matter drop. Condy told himself that
there were plenty of good people in the world, after all. Every
one seemed conspiring to make it easy for him, and he swore at
himself for a weak-kneed cad.
On a certain Tuesday, about a week after the fishing excursion and
the affair of the "Matrimonial Objects," toward half-past six in
the evening, Condy was in his room, dressing for a dinner
engagement. Young Sargeant's sister had invited him to be one of
a party who were to dine at the University Club, and later on fill
a box at a charity play, given by amateurs at one of the downtown
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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 Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Sinclair supporting them with bare fists. It seemed that Bradley
was doomed when, apparently out of space, an arrow whizzed,
striking Schwartz in the side, passing half-way through his body
to crumple him to earth. With a shriek the man fell, and at the
same time Olson and Brady saw the slim figure of a young girl
standing at the edge of the jungle coolly fitting another arrow
to her bow.
Bradley had now succeeded in wrestling his arm free from von
Schoenvorts' grip and in dropping the latter with a blow from the
butt of his pistol. The rest of the English and Germans were
engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter. Plesser and Hindle standing
Out of Time's Abyss |
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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: this office of charity, Silas felt, for the first time since he had
come to Raveloe, a sense of unity between his past and present life,
which might have been the beginning of his rescue from the
insect-like existence into which his nature had shrunk. But Sally
Oates's disease had raised her into a personage of much interest and
importance among the neighbours, and the fact of her having found
relief from drinking Silas Marner's "stuff" became a matter of
general discourse. When Doctor Kimble gave physic, it was natural
that it should have an effect; but when a weaver, who came from
nobody knew where, worked wonders with a bottle of brown waters, the
occult character of the process was evident. Such a sort of thing
Silas Marner |
