| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: been back since. But they appeared to know you had been at your
club."
"So you had the idea of THIS - ?"
"Of what?" she asked in a moment.
"Well - of what has happened."
"I believed at least you'd have been here. I've known, all along,"
she said, "that you've been coming."
"'Known' it -?"
"Well, I've believed it. I said nothing to you after that talk we
had a month ago - but I felt sure. I knew you WOULD," she
declared.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: founded at Coimbra, in Portugal, and Andrea Govea had been invited
to bring thither what French savants he could collect. Buchanan
went to Portugal with his brother Patrick, two more Scotsmen,
Dempster and Ramsay, and a goodly company of French scholars, whose
names and histories may be read in the erudite pages of Dr. Irving,
went likewise. All prospered in the new Temple of the Muses for a
year or so. Then its high-priest, Govea, died; and, by a peripeteia
too common in those days and countries, Buchanan and two of his
friends migrated unwillingly from the Temple of the Muses for that
of Moloch, and found themselves in the Inquisition.
Buchanan, it seems, had said that St. Augustine was more of a
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: hulk, and now with this long passage it got heated, and
there was another case of spontaneous combustion.
"The captain called us into the cabin. He had a chart
spread on the table, and looked unhappy. He said, 'The
coast of West Australia is near, but I mean to proceed
to our destination. It is the hurricane month too; but
we will just keep her head for Bankok, and fight the fire.
No more putting back anywhere, if we all get roasted.
We will try first to stifle this 'ere damned combustion by
want of air.'
"We tried. We battened down everything, and still
Youth |
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 Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Englishman looked his astonishment in spite of his
most herculean efforts to appear courteous, and it required
many repetitions of the strange story of the ape-man as told
by himself, Jane Porter, and Lieutenant D'Arnot to convince
Lord Tennington that they were not all quite mad.
At sunset they buried William Cecil Clayton beside the
jungle graves of his uncle and his aunt, the former Lord
and Lady Greystoke. And it was at Tarzan's request that
three volleys were fired over the last resting place of
"a brave man, who met his death bravely."
Professor Porter, who in his younger days had been ordained
The Return of Tarzan |
