| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: the wife of one of Fyne's colleagues in the Home Office. Flora of
the enigmatical glances was dispatched to them without much
reflection. As it was not considered absolutely necessary to take
them into full confidence, they neither expected the girl to be
specially cheerful nor were they discomposed unduly by the
indescribable quality of her glances. The German woman was quite
ordinary; there were two boys to look after; they were ordinary,
too, I presume; and Flora, I understand, was very attentive to them.
If she taught them anything it must have been by inspiration alone,
for she certainly knew nothing of teaching. But it was mostly
"conversation" which was demanded from her. Flora de Barral
Chance |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: near I approach that blessed land, and already from those realms of peace,
I feel the breath of consolation say on.
Brackenburg. From casual words, dropped here and there by the guards, I
learned that secretly in the market-place they were preparing some terrible
spectacle. Through by-ways and familiar lanes I stole to my cousin's
house, and from a back window, looked out upon the market-place.
Torches waved to and fro, in the hands of a wide circle of Spanish
soldiers. I sharpened my unaccustomed sight, and out of the darkness there
arose before me a scaffold, black, spacious, and lofty! The sight filled me
with horror. Several persons were employed in covering with black cloth
such portions of the wood-work as yet remained white and visible. The
Egmont |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: own sex. If we divide humanity into classes according to type, in each
division will be found the male with his complementary female. Side by
side with the old harlot at the street corner anxious to sell herself,
stands the old aboriginal male, whether covered or not with a veneer of
civilisation, eager and desiring to buy. Side by side with the parasitic
woman, seeking only increased pleasure and luxury from her relations with
man, stands the male seeking only pleasure and self-indulgence from his
relations with her. Side by side with the New Woman, anxious for labour
and seeking from man only such love and fellowship as she gives, stands the
New Man, anxious to possess her only on the terms she offers. If the
social movement, through which the most advanced women of our day are
|
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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: by a country barber.
So it was Alex, Jack Bailey, who had been our ghost. Not only
had he alarmed--Louise and himself, he admitted--on the circular
staircase, but he had dug the hole in the trunk-room wall, and
later sent Eliza into hysteria. The note Liddy had found in
Gertrude's scrap-basket was from him, and it was he who had
startled me into unconsciousness by the clothes chute, and, with
Gertrude's help, had carried me to Louise's room. Gertrude, I
learned, had watched all night beside me, in an extremity of
anxiety about me.
That old Thomas had seen his master, and thought he had seen the
The Circular Staircase |
