The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: were in one of the presses of my cabinet; how was I to reach them?
That was the problem that (crushing my temples in my hands) I set
myself to solve. The laboratory door I had closed. If I sought
to enter by the house, my own servants would consign me to the
gallows. I saw I must employ another hand, and thought of Lanyon.
How was he to be reached? how persuaded? Supposing that I escaped
capture in the streets, how was I to make my way into his
presence? and how should I, an unknown and displeasing visitor,
prevail on the famous physician to rifle the study of his
colleague, Dr. Jekyll? Then I remembered that of my original
character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and
 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: as far as Brindisi. I've travelled day and night to be here to
meet him," she declared. "But, you darling," and she held out a
caressing hand to Susy, "I'm forgetting to ask if you've had
tea?"
An hour later, over the tea-table, Susy already felt herself
mysteriously reabsorbed into what had so long been her native
element. Ellie Vanderlyn had brought a breath of it to Venice;
but Susy was then nourished on another air, the air of Nick's
presence and personality; now that she was abandoned, left again
to her own devices, she felt herself suddenly at the mercy of
the influences from which she thought she had escaped.
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