| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: shall use the carriage to-night."
Lestrade laughed indulgently. "You have, no doubt, already formed
your conclusions from the newspapers," he said. "The case is as
plain as a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer
it becomes. Still, of course, one can't refuse a lady, and such a
very positive one, too. She has heard of you, and would have your
opinion, though I repeatedly told her that there was nothing
which you could do which I had not already done. Why, bless my
soul! here is her carriage at the door."
He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the
most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: "It's land, grandma," said Fenella, wonderingly, as though they had been at
sea for weeks together. She hugged herself; she stood on one leg and
rubbed it with the toes of the other foot; she was trembling. Oh, it had
all been so sad lately. Was it going to change? But all her grandma said
was, "Make haste, child. I should leave your nice banana for the
stewardess as you haven't eaten it." And Fenella put on her black clothes
again and a button sprang off one of her gloves and rolled to where she
couldn't reach it. They went up on deck.
But if it had been cold in the cabin, on deck it was like ice. The sun was
not up yet, but the stars were dim, and the cold pale sky was the same
colour as the cold pale sea. On the land a white mist rose and fell. Now
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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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: drag about our fetter?"
"My dear boy," said his uncle, the catechist, "do not complain
about your fetter, for it is the only thing that makes life worth
living. None are happy, none are good, none are respectable, that
are not gyved like us. And I must tell you, besides, it is very
dangerous talk. If you grumble of your iron, you will have no
luck; if ever you take it off, you will be instantly smitten by a
thunderbolt."
"Are there no thunderbolts for these strangers?" asked Jack.
"Jupiter is longsuffering to the benighted," returned the
catechist.
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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 Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: wealth, like a cat with a caged mouse? This man, for further
qualification, shall be capable of sitting boxed in behind an iron
grating for seven or eight hours a day during seven-eighths of the
year, perched upon a cane-seated chair in a space as narrow as a
lieutenant's cabin on board a man-of-war. Such a man must be able to
defy anchylosis of the knee and thigh joints; he must have a soul
above meanness, in order to live meanly; must lose all relish for
money by dint of handling it. Demand this peculiar specimen of any
creed, educational system, school, or institution you please, and
select Paris, that city of fiery ordeals and branch establishment of
hell, as the soil in which to plant the said cashier. So be it.
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