| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: "The fellow only opened the door and put his arm in to hang the coat up.
All the same--"
"I never thought of that," I whispered back, even more appalled
than before at the closeness of the shave, and marveling at
that something unyielding in his character which was carrying
him through so finely. There was no agitation in his whisper.
Whoever was being driven distracted, it was not he. He was sane.
And the proof of his sanity was continued when he took up
the whispering again.
"It would never do for me to come to life again."
It was something that a ghost might have said. But what he was alluding
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: disclaim knowledge of it.
To his surprise, her answer was flat and uncompromising.
"No; I don't."
"I know I've been brash on some of those rides that got into the
papers," he began his defense, "and that I've been travelling
with a lively crowd."
"I don't mean that," she said, "though I know about it too, and
can't say that I like it. But it is your life in general, your
business. There are women in the world who could marry a man
like you and be happy, but I couldn't. And the more I cared for
such a man, the more unhappy I should be. You see, my
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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 Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: typewriters, and they had nothing but their own inexperience to offer. Edna's
secret ambition had been journalism; but she had planned a clerical position
first, so that she might have time and space in which to determine where and
on what line of journalism she would embark. But the clerical position had not
been forthcoming, either for Letty or her, and day by day their little hoard
dwindled, though the room rent remained normal and the stove consumed coal
with undiminished voracity. And it was a slim little hoard by now.
"There's Max Irwin," Letty said, talking it over. "He's a journalist with a
national reputation. Go and see him, Ed. He knows how, and he should be able
to tell you how."
"But I don't know him," Edna objected.
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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 The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: disconnected the words from any image of deceit. They might have
struck him as the record of a deep dissimulation; but she had
always given him a sense of noble reasons. The vanished aunt was
present, as he looked about him, in the small complacencies of the
room, the beaded velvet and the fluted moreen; and though, as we
know, he had the worship of the Dead, he found himself not
definitely regretting this lady. If she wasn't in his long list,
however, she was in her niece's short one, and Stransom presently
observed to the latter that now at least, in the place they haunted
together, she would have another object of devotion.
"Yes, I shall have another. She was very kind to me. It's that
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