| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: as to who he could be.
Another time an inundation took place in consequence of the stanchions
of a water-tank giving way; and Mr. Starr ascertained beyond a doubt
that these supports had first of all been partially sawn through.
Harry, who had been overseeing the works near the place at the time,
was buried in the falling rubbish, and narrowly escaped death.
A few days afterwards, on the steam tramway, a train of trucks,
which Harry was passing along, met with an obstacle on the rails,
and was overturned. It was then discovered that a beam had been
laid across the line. In short, events of this description became
so numerous that the miners were seized with a kind of panic,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: to an evening paper.
As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open,
they found little knots of people talking excitedly and peering
at the spinning mirror over the sand pits, and the new-comers
were, no doubt, soon infected by the excitement of the oc-
casion.
By half past eight, when the Deputation was destroyed,
there may have been a crowd of three hundred people or
more at this place, besides those who had left the road to
approach the Martians nearer. There were three policemen
too, one of whom was mounted, doing their best, under
War of the Worlds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: first speech of all, Orlando's speech to Adam, with what
passage it shall please you to select - the Seven Ages from
the same play, or even such a stave of nobility as Othello's
farewell to war; and still you will be able to perceive, if
you have an ear for that class of music, a certain superior
degree of organisation in the prose; a compacter fitting of
the parts; a balance in the swing and the return as of a
throbbing pendulum. We must not, in things temporal, take
from those who have little, the little that they have; the
merits of prose are inferior, but they are not the same; it
is a little kingdom, but an independent.
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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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: Without, the deep night paused, gray, impenetrable. Did it hope
that far angel-voices would break its breathless hush, as once on
the fields of Judea, to usher in Christmas morn? A hush, in air,
and earth, and sky, of waiting hope, of a promised joy. Down
there in the farm-window two human hearts had given the joy a
name; the hope throbbed into being; the hearts touching each
other beat in a slow, full chord of love as pure in God's eyes as
the song the angels sang, and as sure a promise of the Christ
that is to come. Forever,--not even death would part them; he
knew that, holding her closer, looking down into her face.
What a pale little face it was! Through the intensest heat of
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
