| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: out, ceased, and she said "Pretty" in a silence that was frightening.
"Draw up your chair, my dear," said Mrs. Stubbs, beginning to pour out.
"Yes," she said thoughtfully, as she handed the tea, "but I don't care
about the size. I'm having an enlargemint. All very well for Christmas
cards, but I never was the one for small photers myself. You get no
comfort out of them. To say the truth, I find them dis'eartening."
Alice quite saw what she meant.
"Size," said Mrs. Stubbs. "Give me size. That was what my poor dear
husband was always saying. He couldn't stand anything small. Gave him the
creeps. And, strange as it may seem, my dear"--here Mrs. Stubbs creaked
and seemed to expand herself at the memory--"it was dropsy that carried him
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: He had slept on burlap sacks, paper stuffed, in the basement
of a newspaper office. Ink flowed with the blood in his
veins. He could operate a press. He could manipulate a
linotype machine (that almost humanly intelligent piece of
mechanism). He could make up a paper single handed,
and had done it. He knew the newspaper game, did Carl
Lasker, from the composing room to the street, and he was a
very great man in his line. And so he was easy to reach,
and simple to talk to, as are all great men.
A stocky man, decidedly handsome, surprisingly young, well
dressed, smooth shaven, direct.
Fanny Herself |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: gleamed dully, as he placed it on the small table beside the bed.
"Except that your door is unlocked, the conditions to-night
are identical. Silence, please, I hear a clock striking."
It was Big Ben. It struck the half-hour, leaving the stillness complete.
In that room, high above the activity which yet prevailed below,
high above the supping crowds in the hotel, high above the starving
crowds on the Embankment, a curious chill of isolation swept about me.
Again I realized how, in the very heart of the great metropolis, a man
may be as far from aid as in the heart of a desert. I was glad that I
was not alone in that room--marked with the death-mark of Fu-Manchu;
and I am certain that Graham Guthrie welcomed his unexpected company.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
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 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: impossible; whether I would or not, I was now confined to the
better part of my existence; and O, how I rejoiced to think of
it! with what willing humility I embraced anew the restrictions
of natural life! with what sincere renunciation I locked the door
by which I had so often gone and come, and ground the key under
my heel!
The next day, came the news that the murder had been
overlooked, that the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and
that the victim was a man high in public estimation. It was not
only a crime, it had been a tragic folly. I think I was glad to
know it; I think I was glad to have my better impulses thus
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
