| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: then through the rain-spattered window of the blanket, I saw a
light. It was a small light, rather yellow, and it lasted perhaps
thirty seconds. Hotchkiss missed it, and was inclined to doubt me.
But in a couple of minutes the roan hobbled to the side of the road
and stopped, and I made out a break in the pines and an arched gate.
It was a small gate, too narrow for the buggy. I pulled the horse
into as much shelter as possible under the trees, and we got out.
Hotchkiss tied the beast and we left him there, head down against
the driving rain, drooping and dejected. Then we went toward the
house.
It was a long walk. The path bent and twisted, and now and then we
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: and, though we had coal enough to go on short steam from New York to
Bordeaux, we haven't enough to go with all steam from New York to Liverpool."
"I will consider," replied Mr. Fogg.
Passepartout understood it all; he was seized with mortal anxiety.
The coal was giving out! "Ah, if my master can get over that,"
muttered he, "he'll be a famous man!" He could not help imparting
to Fix what he had overheard.
"Then you believe that we really are going to Liverpool?"
"Of course."
"Ass!" replied the detective, shrugging his shoulders and turning on his heel.
Passepartout was on the point of vigorously resenting the epithet,
Around the World in 80 Days |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Koran: folks' tales!'
Say, 'Journey on through the land and see how was the end of the
sinners! and grieve not for them, and be not straitened at what they
plot.'
They say, 'When shall this threat be if ye do tell the truth?'
Say; 'It may be that there is pressing close behind you a part of what
ye would hasten on! But, verily, thy Lord is full of grace to men, but
most of them will not be thankful; and, verily, thy Lord knows what
their breasts conceal and what they manifest; and there is no secret
thing in the heaven or the earth, save that it is in the perspicuous
Book!
The Koran |
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 Turn of the Screw by Henry James: my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel--when poor Miss Jessel's dead and buried?
WE know, don't we, love?--and she appealed, blundering in, to the child.
"It's all a mere mistake and a worry and a joke--and we'll go home as fast
as we can!"
Our companion, on this, had responded with a strange,
quick primness of propriety, and they were again, with Mrs. Grose
on her feet, united, as it were, in pained opposition to me.
Flora continued to fix me with her small mask of reprobation,
and even at that minute I prayed God to forgive me for seeming
to see that, as she stood there holding tight to our friend's dress,
her incomparable childish beauty had suddenly failed,
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