| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: CHAPTER THE FIRST
THE HARDINGHAM HOTEL, AND HOW WE BECAME BIG PEOPLE
I
But now that I resume the main line of my story it may be well to
describe the personal appearance of my uncle as I remember him
during those magnificent years that followed his passage from
trade to finance. The little man plumped up very considerably
during the creation of the Tono-Bungay property, but with the
increasing excitements that followed that first flotation came
dyspepsia and a certain flabbiness and falling away. His
abdomen--if the reader will pardon my taking his features in the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: over a year, hardly believing that there was such a place, and now
--we were in it.
It looked safe and civilized enough, and among those upturned,
crowding faces, though some were terrified enough, there was great
beauty--on that we all agreed.
"Come on!" cried Terry, pushing forward. "Oh, come on!
Here goes for Herland!"
CHAPTER 2
Rash Advances
Not more than ten or fifteen miles we judged it from our
landing rock to that last village. For all our eagerness we thought
Herland |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: what is to be and faces it, came to his help again. R--
The lizard's eye flickered once more. The veins on his forehead bulged.
The geranium in the urn became startlingly visible and, displayed among
its leaves, he could see, without wishing it, that old, that obvious
distinction between the two classes of men; on the one hand the steady
goers of superhuman strength who, plodding and persevering, repeat the
whole alphabet in order, twenty-six letters in all, from start to finish;
on the other the gifted, the inspired who, miraculously, lump all the
letters together in one flash--the way of genius. He had not genius; he
laid no claim to that: but he had, or might have had, the power to repeat
every letter of the alphabet from A to Z accurately in order. Meanwhile,
To the Lighthouse |
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 A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: wolf, but I was much too quick for him, and each time I
side-stepped his rushes he would go lunging past me, only
to receive a nick from my sword upon his arm or back. He
was soon streaming blood from a half dozen minor wounds,
but I could not obtain an opening to deliver an effective
thrust. Then he changed his tactics, and fighting warily and
with extreme dexterity, he tried to do by science what he
was unable to do by brute strength. I must admit that he was
a magnificent swordsman, and had it not been for my greater
endurance and the remarkable agility the lesser gravitation
of Mars lent me I might not have been able to put up the
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