| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: breaking down, and thus adding to the young man's anxiety, which
evidently had become very keen.
Though he tried to hide it, Marguerite could see that Sir
Andrew was just as anxious as she was to reach his comrade and friend.
This enforced inactivity was terrible to them both.
How they spend that wearisome day at Dover, Marguerite could
never afterwards say. She was in terror of showing herself, lest
Chauvelin's spies happened to be about, so she had a private
sitting-room, and she and Sir Andrew sat there hour after hour, trying
to take, at long intervals, some perfunctory meals, which little Sally
would bring them, with nothing to do but to think, to conjecture, and
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: utmost preparedness to jump at the very first hint of some sort of
order, but otherwise in a perfectly acquiescent state of mind.
Suddenly, out of the companion would appear a tall, dark figure,
bareheaded, with a short white beard of a perpendicular cut, very
visible in the dark - Captain S-, disturbed in his reading down
below by the frightful bounding and lurching of the ship. Leaning
very much against the precipitous incline of the deck, he would
take a turn or two, perfectly silent, hang on by the compass for a
while, take another couple of turns, and suddenly burst out:
"What are you trying to do with the ship?"
And Mr. P-, who was not good at catching what was shouted in the
The Mirror of the Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether leave me.
At most times it lies far in the back of my mind, a mere distant cloud,
a memory, and a faint distrust; but there are times when the little
cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then I look about me
at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright;
others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,--none that
have the calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though
the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation
of the Islanders will be played over again on a larger scale.
I know this is an illusion; that these seeming men and women about
me are indeed men and women,--men and women for ever, perfectly
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
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 Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: So much display of life I can myself swear to. I have heard from
others that he visibly strove to speak, that his teeth showed in
his beard, and that his brow was contorted as with an agony of pain
and effort. And this may have been; I know not, I was otherwise
engaged. For at that first disclosure of the dead man's eyes, my
Lord Durrisdeer fell to the ground, and when I raised him up, he
was a corpse.
Day came, and still Secundra could not be persuaded to desist from
his unavailing efforts. Sir William, leaving a small party under
my command, proceeded on his embassy with the first light; and
still the Indian rubbed the limbs and breathed in the mouth of the
|
