| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: off his natural curiosity as to her latest conference with the
Man of Fate by an incredible statement as to the nature of the
conversation. Talk about dresses, opera, people's names. He
couldn't take this seriously. She might have invented, he
thought, something more plausible; or simply have told him that
this was not for him to know. She ought to have known that he
would not have been offended. Couldn't she have seen already that
he accepted the complexion of mystery in her relation to that man
completely, unquestionably; as though it had been something
preordained from the very beginning of things? But he was not
annoyed with Mrs. Travers. After all it might have been true. She
The Rescue |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: parents, who quotes Theophile Gautier and moves through the world
manfully, much respected for all her twenty inexperienced
summers.
Item, a woman from cloud-land who has no history in the past or
future, but is discreetly of the present, and strives for the
confidences of male humanity on the grounds of "sympathy"
(methinks this is not altogether a new type).
Item, a girl in a "dive," blessed with a Greek head and eyes,
that seem to speak all that is best and sweetest in the world.
But woe is me! She has no ideas in this world or the next beyond
the consumption of beer (a commission on each bottle), and
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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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: Colonial, "to dig the grave. You'd better bury him at once; there's no use
waiting. We start first thing in the morning."
When they were alone, the Englishman uncovered Peter Halket's breast.
There was one small wound just under the left bosom; and one on the crown
of the head; which must have been made after he had fallen down.
"Strange, isn't it, what he can have been doing here?" said the Colonial;
"a small wound, isn't it?"
"A pistol shot," said the Englishman, closing the bosom.
"A pistol--"
The Englishman looked up at him with a keen light in his eye.
"I told you he would not kill that nigger.--See--here--" He took up the
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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 Gambara by Honore de Balzac: musical drama," said Gambara, airily, as standing in front of Andrea's
piano he struck the keys, listened to the tone, and then seated
himself, meditating for a few minutes as if to collect his ideas.
"To begin with, you must know," said he, "that an ear as practised as
mine at once detected that labor of choice and setting of which you
spoke. Yes, the music has been selected, lovingly, from the storehouse
of a rich and fertile imagination wherein learning has squeezed every
idea to extract the very essence of music. I will illustrate the
process."
He rose to carry the candles into the adjoining room, and before
sitting down again he drank a full glass of Giro, a Sardinian wine, as
Gambara |
