| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: speculate whether this heat and haste and wrath of life about us is
the Dark God of the Manichees, the evil spirit of the sun
worshippers. But in contemporary thought there is no conviction
apparent that this Demiurge is either good or evil; it is conceived
of as both good and evil. If it gives all the pain and conflict of
life, it gives also the joy of the sunshine, the delight and hope of
youth, the pleasures. If it has elaborated a hundred thousand sorts
of parasite, it has also moulded the beautiful limbs of man and
woman; it has shaped the slug and the flower. And in it, as part of
it, taking its rewards, responding to its goads, struggling against
the final abandonment to death, do we all live, as the beasts live,
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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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Under pretext of learning more about the place, Thomas Johnson
led me through the house and the cellars, without result.
Everything was in good order and repair; money had been spent
lavishly on construction and plumbing. The house was full of
conveniences, and I had no reason to repent my bargain, save
the fact that, in the nature of things, night must come again.
And other nights must follow--and we were a long way from a
police-station.
In the afternoon a hack came up from Casanova, with a fresh relay
of servants. The driver took them with a flourish to the
servants' entrance, and drove around to the front of the house,
The Circular Staircase |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: tossed it in amongst them. One can't get him to talk about it, but
the fuse was short, the survivors leaped overboard, while he
slipped his anchor and got away. They've got one hundred fathoms
of shell money on his head now, which is worth one hundred pounds
sterling. Yet he goes into Suu regularly. He was there a short
time ago, returning thirty boys from Cape Marsh--that's the Fulcrum
Brothers' plantation."
"At any rate, his news to-night has given me a better insight into
the life down here," Joan said. "And it is colourful life, to say
the least. The Solomons ought to be printed red on the charts--and
yellow, too, for the diseases."
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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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods
Whisper in odorous heights of even.
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Hendecasyllabics.
O you chorus of indolent reviewers,
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,
Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem
All composed in a metre of Catullus,
All in quantity, careful of my motion,
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him,
Lest I fall unawares before the people,
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