| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: neglect of his brother-in-law. By some absurd chance,
this damned brother-in-law happened to be Gafferson.
It was clear enough that, when he returned to Mexico,
Tavender had written to Gafferson, explaining the unexpected
pressure of business which had taken up all his time
in England. Probably he had been idiot enough to relate
what he of course regarded as the most wonderful piece
of good news--how the worthless concession he had been
deluded into buying had been bought back from him.
As likely as not he had even identified the concession,
and given Thorpe's name as that of the man who had first
The Market-Place |
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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: never met a woman who commanded his respect. Condemned to pass
the susceptible years of youth in a railway station in Bombay,
he had seen only coloured women, military women, official women;
and his ideal was a woman who could read Greek, if not Persian,
was irreproachably fair in the face, and able to understand
the small things he let fall while undressing. As it was he
had contracted habits of which he was not in the least ashamed.
Certain odd minutes every day went to learning things by heart;
he never took a ticket without noting the number; he devoted
January to Petronius, February to Catullus, March to the Etruscan
vases perhaps; anyhow he had done good work in India, and there
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