| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy."
The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path,
And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath.
"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said,
"and the tale is yet to run:
By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer -- what ha' ye done?"
Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore,
For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before: --
"O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say,
And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway."
-- "Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack!
Verses 1889-1896 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: was not the property of any one of them. In the eagerness they all
evinced in purloining what was not theirs, and in the perfect
content with which they then proceeded to enjoy what they had taken,
they remind us forcibly of that happy-go-lucky class in the
community which prefers to live on questionable loans rather than
work itself for a living. Like those same individuals, whatever
interest the Far Eastern people may succeed in raising now, Nature
will in the end make them pay dearly for their lack of principal.
The Far Eastern civilization resembles, in fact, more a mechanical
mixture of social elements than a well differentiated chemical
compound. For in spite of the great variety of ingredients thrown
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: - on with the dance: let joy be unconfined."
So I told the story; I had told it so many times that day that I
did it automatically. And I told about the girl with the bronze
hair, and my suspicions. But I did not mention Alison West.
McKnight listened to the end without interruption. When I had
finished he drew a long breath.
"Well!" he said. "That's something of a mess, isn't it? If you
can only prove your mild and child-like disposition, they couldn't
hold you for the murder - which is a regular ten-twent-thirt crime,
anyhow. But the notes - that's different. They are not burned,
anyhow. Your man wasn't on the train - therefore, he wasn't in the
The Man in Lower Ten |
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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: stood in the wash-tub, grinding it with boots that had crunched the
shingle, came as directed to open all windows, and dust the bedrooms.
5
As she lurched (for she rolled like a ship at sea) and leered (for her
eyes fell on nothing directly, but with a sidelong glance that
deprecated the scorn and anger of the world--she was witless, she knew
it), as she clutched the banisters and hauled herself upstairs and
rolled from room to room, she sang. Rubbing the glass of the long
looking-glass and leering sideways at her swinging figure a sound
issued from her lips--something that had been gay twenty years before
on the stage perhaps, had been toothless, bonneted, care-taking woman,
To the Lighthouse |
