| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: watched his tormentor mount the stairs and enter the whisky-
shop, there floated into his mind a sense as of something
long ago familiar. At that he started fully awake, and
stared at the shop-fronts. Yes, he knew them; but when? and
how? Long since, he thought; and then, casting his eye
through the front glass, which had been recently occluded by
the figure of the jarvey, he beheld the tree-tops of the
rookery in Randolph Crescent. He was close to home - home,
where he had thought, at that hour, to be sitting in the
well-remembered drawing-room in friendly converse; and,
instead - !
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: sits here at this table because then he can see if he is needed over
at the house."
"Oh, please let him come here. He has prior rights to this table
undoubtedly," said the stranger politely. The old butler sat down
with an embarrassed murmur, as the voluble landlord explained that
the stranger had no objection. Then the boniface hurried off to
attend to some newly entered customers and the detective, greatly
pleased at the prospect, found himself alone with the old servant.
"You come here frequently?" he began, to open the conversation.
"Yes, sir, since my master and myself have settled down here - we
travelled most of the time until several years ago - I find this
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: should be a little odd in appearance, funny about the hair or the
tie or the shoes or more generally, and that bursts of violent
aggression should alternate with an attitude entirely defensive. A
number of our guests had an air of waiting for a clue that never
came, and stood and sat about silently, mildly amused but not a bit
surprised that we did not discover their distinctive Open-Sesames.
There was a sprinkling of manifest seers and prophetesses in
shapeless garments, far too many, I thought, for really easy social
intercourse, and any conversation at any moment was liable to become
oracular. One was in a state of tension from first to last; the
most innocent remark seemed capable of exploding resentment, and
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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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: reeds parting before the onward rush of some animal. 'Now for it,' said
I. On it came. I could see that it was yellow, and prepared for
action, when instead of a lion out bounded a beautiful reit bok which
had been lying in the shelter of the pan. It must, by the way, have
been a reit bok of a peculiarly confiding nature to lay itself down with
the lion, like the lamb of prophesy, but I suppose the reeds were thick,
and that it kept a long way off.
"Well, I let the reit bok go, and it went like the wind, and kept my
eyes fixed upon the reeds. The fire was burning like a furnace now; the
flames crackling and roaring as they bit into the reeds, sending spouts
of fire twenty feet and more into the air, and making the hot air dance
Long Odds |
