| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: plaintive appeals for correspondence, and written only once as
against God knows how many notes and notikins of mine - here goes
again. I am now all alone in Monterey, a real inhabitant, with a
box of my own at the P.O. I have splendid rooms at the doctor's,
where I get coffee in the morning (the doctor is French), and I
mess with another jolly old Frenchman, the stranded fifty-eight-
year-old wreck of a good-hearted, dissipated, and once wealthy
Nantais tradesman. My health goes on better; as for work, the
draft of my book was laid aside at p. 68 or so; and I have now, by
way of change, more than seventy pages of a novel, a one-volume
novel, alas! to be called either A CHAPTER IN EXPERIENCE OF ARIZONA
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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 Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: will track down his victim, driven by the power in his soul which
is stronger than all volition; but when he has this victim in the
net, he will sometimes discover him to be a much finer, better man
than the other individual, whose wrong at this particular criminal's
hand set in motion the machinery of justice. Several times that
has happened to Muller, and each time his heart got the better of
his professional instincts, of his practical common-sense, too,
perhaps, ... at least as far as his own advancement was concerned,
and he warned the victim, defeating his own work. This peculiarity
of Muller's character caused his undoing at last, his official
undoing that is, and compelled his retirement from the force. But
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: doorkeeper's glass box. "I hadn't any half-crowns to spare for
tips," he remarked grimly. The man, however, ran out after him
asking: "What do you require?" but with a grateful glance up at the
first floor in remembrance of Captain R-'s examination room (how
easy and delightful all that had been) he bolted down a flight
leading to the basement and found himself in a place of dusk and
mystery and many doors. He had been afraid of being stopped by some
rule of no-admittance. However he was not pursued.
The basement of St. Katherine's Dock House is vast in extent and
confusing in its plan. Pale shafts of light slant from above into
the gloom of its chilly passages. Powell wandered up and down there
Chance |
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 At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: swallowed by the countless convulsions which have racked
the outer crust, or they may be merely the result of evolution
along slightly different lines--either is quite possible."
Further speculation was interrupted by the appearance
of several of our captors before the entrance of the hut.
Two of them entered and dragged us forth. The perilous
pathways and the surrounding trees were filled with
the black ape-men, their females, and their young.
There was not an ornament, a weapon, or a garment among
the lot.
"Quite low in the scale of creation," commented Perry.
At the Earth's Core |
