| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: "What name is that?"
"Herbert."
"Herbert!" Austin repeated the word, dazed with
astonishment.
"Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street, Helen Vaughan of
earlier adventures unknown to me. You had reason to recognize
the expression of her face; when you go home look at the face
in Meyrick's book of horrors, and you will know the sources of
your recollection."
"And you have proof of this?"
"Yes, the best of proof; I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: must be, meant ruin infallibly. The captain therefore resolved to wait
patiently, resting his faith on time and the imperfection of men,
which always results--even with scoundrels, and how much more with
honest men!--in the neglect of precautions.
The next day he discovered a hammock in the kitchen, showing plainly
where the servant-woman slept. As for the apprentice, his bed was
evidently made on the shop counter. During supper on the second day
Montefiore succeeded, by cursing Napoleon, in smoothing the anxious
forehead of the merchant, a grave, black-visaged Spaniard, much like
the faces formerly carved on the handles of Moorish lutes; even the
wife let a gay smile of hatred appear in the folds of her elderly
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: neighbourliness and general curiosity; he, because he was
working for me, to my sorrow, cutting firewood at I forget
how much a day. The way that he set about cutting wood was
characteristic. We were at that moment patching up and
unpacking in the kitchen. Down he sat on one side, and down
sat his sister on the other. Both were chewing pine-tree
gum, and he, to my annoyance, accompanied that simple
pleasure with profuse expectoration. She rattled away,
talking up hill and down dale, laughing, tossing her head,
showing her brilliant teeth. He looked on in silence, now
spitting heavily on the floor, now putting his head back and
|
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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: outside of that, his mind was very largely blank. He had indeed a
simplicity that came near to vacancy; and in the first forty years
of his married life, this want grew more accentuated. In both
families imprudent marriages had been the rule; but neither Jenkin
nor Campbell had ever entered into a more unequal union. It was
the captain's good looks, we may suppose, that gained for him this
elevation; and in some ways and for many years of his life, he had
to pay the penalty. His wife, impatient of his incapacity and
surrounded by brilliant friends, used him with a certain contempt.
She was the managing partner; the life was hers, not his; after his
retirement they lived much abroad, where the poor captain, who
|
