| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: Smith wheeled the big arm-chair forward.
"Sit down, Mr. Weymouth," he said. "I am not entirely surprised.
But you have my attention. What has occurred?"
Weymouth took a cigarette from the box which I proffered and poured
out a peg of whisky. His hand was not quite steady.
"That knocking," he explained. "It came again the night
after you were there, and Mrs. Weymouth--my wife, I mean--
felt that she couldn't spend another night there, alone" "Did she
look out of the window?" I asked.
"No, Doctor; she was afraid. But I spent last night downstairs
in the sitting-room--and _I_ looked out!"
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: struck me as one that I had heard during my sufferings.
"Are you better now, sir?" said she.
I replied in the same language, with a feeble voice, "I believe I am;
but if it be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I am sorry that
I am still alive to feel this misery and horror."
"For that matter," replied the old woman, "if you mean about the
gentleman you murdered, I believe that it were better for you if
you were dead, for I fancy it will go hard with you! However,
that's none of my business; I am sent to nurse you and get you well;
I do my duty with a safe conscience; it were well if everybody
did the same."
Frankenstein |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: because teaching appealed to her as being a rather elegant
occupation. The Huckins family was not elegant. In that day a
year or two of teaching in a country school took the place of the
present-day normal-school diploma. Bella had an eye on St.
Louis, forty miles from the town of Commercial. So she used the
country school as a step toward her ultimate goal, though she
hated the country and dreaded her apprenticeship.
"I'll get a beau," she said, "who'll take me driving and
around. And Saturdays and Sundays I can come to town."
The first time Ben Westerveld saw her she was coming down the
road toward him in her tight-fitting black alpaca dress. The
One Basket |
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 End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: like fiery coal in the deep carvings of a wheel of stone.
The two men faced about.
"I'll tell you what they ought to do next, Whalley,"
growled Captain Eliott suddenly.
"Well?"
"They ought to send a real live lord out here when
Sir Frederick's time is up. Eh?"
Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord
of the right sort should not do as well as anyone else.
But this was not the other's point of view.
"No, no. Place runs itself. Nothing can stop it now.
End of the Tether |
