| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: number of persons anxious to escape the infection of some contagious
disease, should propose as a cure to inoculate them all with it in its most
virulent form!)
As new forms of natural force are mastered and mechanical appliances
perfected, it will be quite possible for the male half of all civilised
races (and therefore ultimately of all) to absorb the entire fields of
intellectual and highly trained manual labour; and it would be entirely
possible for the female half of the race, whether as prostitutes, as kept
mistresses, or as kept wives, to cease from all forms of active toil, and,
as the passive tools of sexual reproduction, or, more decadently still, as
the mere instruments of sexual indulgence, to sink into a condition of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: wood. We hid among the cliffs.'
'Did you have a governess, then?'
'Did we not? A Greek, too. She had a way of clutching
her dress when she hunted us among the gorse-bushes
that made us laugh. Then she'd say she'd get us
whipped. She never did, though, bless her! Aglaia was a
thorough sportswoman, for all her learning.'
'But what lessons did you do - when - when you
were little?'
'Ancient history, the Classics, arithmetic and so on,'he
answered. 'My sister and I were thickheads, but my two
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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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: suicide under those very lights.
Mr. Jamieson left, taking a short cut to the village, and I still
stood there. It must have been after eleven, and the monotonous
tick of the big clock on the stairs behind me was the only sound.
Then I was conscious that some one was running up the drive. In
a minute a woman darted into the area of light made by the open
door, and caught me by the arm. It was Rosie--Rosie in a state
of collapse from terror, and, not the least important, clutching
one of my Coalport plates and a silver spoon.
She stood staring into the darkness behind, still holding the
plate. I got her into the house and secured the plate; then I
The Circular Staircase |
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 War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: said the little dark man. "You carn tell what they might do."
"Where's your shells?" said the first speaker. "There ain't
no time. Do it in a rush, that's my tip, and do it at once."
So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and went
on to the railway station to get as many morning papers as
I could.
But I will not weary the reader with a description of that
long morning and of the longer afternoon. I did not succeed
in getting a glimpse of the common, for even Horsell and
Chobham church towers were in the hands of the military
authorities. The soldiers I addressed didn't know anything;
War of the Worlds |
