| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: betrayed a sense of something very different from relief: "Oh the
Pudneys!" I knew their envelopes though they didn't know mine.
They always used the kind sold at post-offices with the stamp
affixed, and as this letter hadn't been posted they had wasted a
penny on me. I had seen their horrid missives to the Mulvilles,
but hadn't been in direct correspondence with them.
"They enclosed it to me, to be delivered. They doubtless explain
to you that they hadn't your address."
I turned the thing over without opening it. "Why in the world
should they write to me?"
"Because they've something to tell you. The worst," Mrs. Saltram
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: He is, as you say, idolized by the only two members of his
family that we have seen--persons, moreover, who have been
brought up in ways different to his own, and who would
not start, therefore, with prejudices in his favour.
Beyond that, I know of two cases in which he has behaved,
or rather undertaken to behave, with really lavish
generosity--and in neither case was there any claim upon
him of a substantial nature. He seems to me, in fact,
quite too much disposed to share his fortune with Tom,
Dick, and Harry--anybody who excites his sympathy or gets
into his affections." Having said this much, Lady Cressage
The Market-Place |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: Myles, as usual, carried his way, and so a pitched battle was
decided upon. It was Gascoyne who suggested the plan which they
afterwards followed.
Then Wilkes started away to gather together those of the Knights
of the Rose not upon household duty, and Myles, with the others,
went to the armor smith to have him make for them a set of knives
with which to meet their enemies-- knives with blades a foot
long, pointed and double- edged.
The smith, leaning with his hammer upon the anvil, listened to
them as they described the weapons.
"Nay, nay, Master Myles," said he, when Myles had ended by
Men of Iron |
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 A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: burst silently asunder. Nothing remained of it - the whole body
disappeared instantaneously into the same invisible mist from which
it had sprung.
"That bears out what you said," commented Maskull, turning rather
pale.
"Yes," answered Leehallfae, "we have now come to the region of
terrible life."
"Then, since you're right in this, I must believe all that you've
been telling me."
As he uttered the words, they were just turning a bend of the ravine.
There now loomed up straight ahead a perpendicular cliff about three
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