| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: dismount to stalk a fine waterbuck of which I caught sight
standing among some coarse grass and bushes, my eye fell upon
buffalo spoor that from its appearance I knew could not be more
than a few hours old. Evidently the beasts had been feeding here
during the night and at dawn had moved away to sleep in the dry
bush nearer the hills. Beckoning to Anscombe, who fortunately
had not seen the waterbuck, at which he would certainly have
fired, thereby perhaps frightening the buffalo, I showed him the
spoor that we at once started to follow.
Soon it led us into other spoor, that of a whole herd of thirty
or forty beasts indeed, which made our task quite easy, at least
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: by my last letter, and by all the rest, which he went for after,
that I was not gone to Bath, that his first letter had not come
to my hand; upon which he write me this following:--
'MADAM,--I am surprised that my letter, dated the 8th of last
month, did not come to your hand; I give you my word it was
delivered at your lodgings, and to the hands of your maid.
'I need not acquaint you with what has been my condition
for some time past; and how, having been at the edge of the
grave, I am, by the unexpected and undeserved mercy of
Heaven, restored again. In the condition I have been in, it
cannot be strange to you that our unhappy correspondence
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: Once he turned and walked for a long way
after a little man of rotund inviting outline, but he
was unable to master confidence to address him.
It was only slowly that it came to him that he might
ask for the "wind-vane offices," whatever the "wind-
vane offices" might be. His first enquiry simply
resulted in a direction to go on towards Westminster.
His second led to the discovery of a short cut in which
he was speedily lost. He was told to leave the ways
to which he had hitherto confined himself knowing
no other means of transit--and to plunge down one
When the Sleeper Wakes |
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 Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: until it was like a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in
a nightmare it was! He flourished it about and flung it forth
as a fly-fisher flings his line.
My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about,
and there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking
no evil. They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was
standing on a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of
big drum in his hand.
"Hide and seek, dadda!" cried Gip. "You're He!"
And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped
the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. "Take that off,"
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