| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: the financial heavens happened--it is now ten years ago! Do you
remember the days of Ponderevo, the great days, I mean, of
Ponderevo? Perhaps you had a trifle in some world-shaking
enterprise! Then you know him only too well. Astraddle on
Tono-Bungay, he flashed athwart the empty heavens--like a
comet--rather, like a stupendous rocket!--and overawed investors
spoke of his star. At his zenith he burst into a cloud of the
most magnificent promotions. What a time that was! The Napoleon
of domestic conveniences!
I was his nephew, his peculiar and intimate nephew. I was hanging
on to his coat-tails all the way through. I made pills with him
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: away to the open down beyond. "Let's go back to Lady Grove over
the hill," he said. "Something I want to show you. Something
fine!"
It was an empty sunlit place that summer evening, sky and earth
warm with sundown, and a pe-wit or so just accentuating the
pleasant stillness that ends a long clear day. A beautiful
peace, it was, to wreck for ever. And there was my uncle, the
modern man of power, in his grey top-hat and his grey suit and
his black-ribboned glasses, short, thin-legged, large-stomached,
pointing and gesticulating, threatening this calm.
He began with a wave of his arm. "That's the place, George," he
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