| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: had a glass or two, Mr. Swaffer's foreigner tried
to expostulate: was ejected forcibly: got a black
eye.
"I believe he felt the hostility of his human sur-
roundings. But he was tough--tough in spirit,
too, as well as in body. Only the memory of the
sea frightened him, with that vague terror that is
left by a bad dream. His home was far away; and
he did not want now to go to America. I had often
explained to him that there is no place on earth
where true gold can be found lying ready and to be
Amy Foster |
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 Glasses by Henry James: edged in places with its iron rail, might have been the deck of a
huge crowded ship. There were old folks in Bath chairs, and there
was one dear chair, creeping to its last full stop, by the side of
which I always walked. There was in fine weather the coast of
France to look at, and there were the usual things to say about it;
there was also in every state of the atmosphere our friend Mrs.
Meldrum, a subject of remark not less inveterate. The widow of an
officer in the Engineers, she had settled, like many members of the
martial miscellany, well within sight of the hereditary enemy, who
however had left her leisure to form in spite of the difference of
their years a close alliance with my mother. She was the
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