| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: and-white nest in which she was snuggled, like the
fluting pipe of a canary.
"Yes, sir," said she.
"My dear child," said the rector, "you know
perfectly well that you have no big sister -- Solly."
Every time the rector said Solly he swallowed hard.
Content smiled as Sally had described her smiling.
She said nothing. The rector felt reproved and
looked down upon from enormous heights of inno-
cence and childhood and the wisdom thereof. How-
ever, he persisted.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: love of letters, and even some artistic conscience. But he will find
not one of the models of his type (I say nothing of mere imitators of
it) below the rank that looks at the middle class, not humbly and
enviously from below, but insolently from above. Mr Harris himself
notes Shakespear's contempt for the tradesman and mechanic, and his
incorrigible addiction to smutty jokes. He does us the public service
of sweeping away the familiar plea of the Bardolatrous ignoramus, that
Shakespear's coarseness was part of the manners of his time, putting
his pen with precision on the one name, Spenser, that is necessary to
expose such a libel on Elizabethan decency. There was nothing
whatever to prevent Shakespear from being as decent as More was before
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: her own; she could no longer think of him as the sun which
radiated happiness upon her life, for she had turned to him
once, and he had breathed upon her black and chilly, radiated
blackness and frost. To put the whole matter in a word, she
was beginning, although ever so slightly, to fall out of
love.
CHAPTER VI - THE PRODIGAL FATHER GOES ON FROM STRENGTH TO
STRENGTH
WE will not follow all the steps of the Admiral's return and
installation, but hurry forward towards the catastrophe,
merely chronicling by the way a few salient incidents,
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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 Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: shapes.
It was just past five, with the bloated, fungoid moon
sinking in the west, when I staggered into camp - hatless, tattered,
features scratched and ensanguined, and without my electric torch.
Most of the men had returned to bed, but Professor Dyer was smoking
a pipe in front of his tent. Seeing my winded and almost frenzied
state, he called Dr. Boyle, and the two of them got me on my cot
and made me comfortable. My son, roused by the stir, soon joined
them, and they all tried to force me to lie still and attempt
sleep.
But there was no sleep for me. My psychological state
Shadow out of Time |
