| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: charity without reproach. Every man HAD his own, and every man
had, to meet this charity, the ample resources of the soul.
It was doubtless the voice of Mary Antrim that spoke for them best;
as the years at any rate went by he found himself in regular
communion with these postponed pensioners, those whom indeed he
always called in his thoughts the Others. He spared them the
moments, he organised the charity. Quite how it had risen he
probably never could have told you, but what came to pass was that
an altar, such as was after all within everybody's compass, lighted
with perpetual candles and dedicated to these secret rites, reared
itself in his spiritual spaces. He had wondered of old, in some
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: end first! A cold in the head? Yes, that's true; but if she has
caught cold, I can't say when, I don't know anything about it--
nothing, nothing at all. I have always kept her well covered;
she's always had as much as three covers on her. The truth is,
it was when you came, the time before last; you were all the time
insisting upon opening the windows in the house!"
"But once more I tell you," cried Madame Dupont, "we are not
putting any blame on you."
"Yes," cried the woman, more vehemently. "I know what that kind
of talk means. It's no use--when you're a poor country woman."
"What are you imagining now?" demanded the other.
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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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: judge from his increased vigour and the loud purring noise he made.
Then I knew that the end had come, for in another second his file-like
tongue would have rasped through the skin of my leg--which was luckily
pretty tough--and have drawn the blood, and then there would be no
chance for me. So I just lay there and thought of my sins, and prayed
to the Almighty, and reflected that after all life was a very enjoyable
thing.
"Then of a sudden I heard a crashing of bushes and the shouting and
whistling of men, and there were the two boys coming back with the
cattle, which they had found trekking along all together. The lions
lifted their heads and listened, then bounded off without a sound--and I
Long Odds |
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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: that those who call out are hypocrites, desperately vexed because they
have no good ideas of their own, and neither power to advertise nor
skill to exploit a business. You will not have long to wait for proof.
In a very short time you will see the aristocracy, the court, and
public men descend into speculation in serried columns; you will see
that their claws are longer, their morality more crooked than ours,
while they have not our good points. What a head a man must have if he
has to found a business in times when the shareholder is as covetous
and keen as the inventor! What a great magnetizer must he be that can
create a Claparon and hit upon expedients never tried before! Do you
know the moral of it all? Our age is no better than we are; we live in
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