| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: handy-man of business and that of the Yankee merchant sailor
--we agreed to dwell upon at some length, and make the woof
to our not very precious warp. Hence Dodd's father, and
Pinkerton, and Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and the
railway work in New South Wales--the last an unsolicited
testimonial from the powers that be, for the tale was half
written before I saw Carthew's squad toil in the rainy cutting at
South Clifton, or heard from the engineer of his "young swell."
After we had invented at some expense of time this method of
approaching and fortifying our police novel, it occurred to us it
had been invented previously by some one else, and was in
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest --
I too awaited the expected guest. 230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
The Waste Land |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: seemed no nearer than at morn. Never a sign of living thing
had the ape-man seen, other than Ska, that bird of ill omen,
that had followed him tirelessly since he had entered this
parched waste.
No littlest beetle that he might eat had given evidence that
life of any sort existed here, and it was a hungry and thirsty
Tarzan who lay down to rest in the evening. He decided now
to push on during the cool of the night, for he realized that
even mighty Tarzan had his limitations and that where there
was no food one could not eat and where there was no water
the greatest woodcraft in the world could find none. It was a
Tarzan the Untamed |
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 Richard III by William Shakespeare: Make war upon themselves-brother to brother,
Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous
And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,
Or let me die, to look on death no more!
QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, my boy; we will to
sanctuary.
Madam, farewell.
DUCHESS. Stay, I will go with you.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. You have no cause.
ARCHBISHOP. [To the QUEEN] My gracious lady, go.
And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
Richard III |
