| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: minute intermission for a lunch which was brought up from the hotel
below. At six o'clock he slammed shut the desk. He descended the
stairs with Orde, from whom he parted at their foot, and walked
precisely away, his tall, thin figure held rigid and slightly askew,
his pale eyes slitted behind his eye-glasses, the unlighted cigar in
one corner of his straight lips. To the occasional passerby he
bowed coldly and with formality. At the corner below he bore to the
left, and after a short walk entered the small one-story house set
well back from the sidewalk among the clumps of oleanders. Here he
turned into a study, quietly and richly furnished ten years in
advance of the taste then prevalent in Monrovia, where he sank into
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: "Oh, he has been working too hard!" was a reflection due to another
shade of expression which Caroline could discern.
The stranger, on his part, could guess when the girl had spent Sunday
in finishing a dress, and he felt an interest in the pattern. As
quarter-day came near he could see that her pretty face was clouded by
anxiety, and he could guess when Caroline had sat up late at work; but
above all, he noted how the gloomy thoughts that dimmed the cheerful
and delicate features of her young face gradually vanished by degrees
as their acquaintance ripened. When winter had killed the climbers and
plants of her window garden, and the window was kept closed, it was
not without a smile of gentle amusement that the stranger observed the
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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 End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: all confused and mingling darkly everywhere; but low
down, amidships, a single lighted port stared out on
the night, perfectly round, like a small, full moon,
whose yellow beam caught a patch of wet mud, the
edge of trodden grass, two turns of heavy cable
wound round the foot of a thick wooden post in the
ground.
Mr. Van Wyk, peering alongside, heard a muzzy
boastful voice apparently jeering at a person called
Prendergast. It mouthed abuse thickly, choked; then
pronounced very distinctly the word "Murphy," and
End of the Tether |
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 Salome by Oscar Wilde: regardiez e travers cette emeraude vous pourriez voir des choses qui
se passent e une distance immense. Cesar lui-meme en porte une tout
e fait pareille quand il va au cirque. Mais la mienne est plus
grande. Je sais bien qu'elle est plus grande. C'est la plus grande
emeraude du monde. N'est-ce pas que vous voulez cela? Demandez-moi
cela et je vous le donnerai.
SALOME. Je demande la tete d'Iokanaan.
HERODE. Vous ne m'ecoutez pas, vous ne m'ecoutez pas. Enfin,
laissez-moi parler, Salome.
SALOME. La tete d'Iokanaan.
HERODE. Non, non, vous ne voulez pas cela. Vous me dites cela
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