| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: will see me back on the instant; and I haven't yet lost
that hope.
She read the letter with a rush; then she went over and
over it, each time more slowly and painstakingly. It
was so beautifully expressed that she found it almost
as difficult to understand as the gentleman's
explanation of the Bible pictures at Nettleton; but
gradually she became aware that the gist of its meaning
lay in the last few words. "If ever there is a hope of
realizing what we dreamed of..."
But then he wasn't even sure of that? She
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: details through every hallway in the tenement.
"Ah, but Tom's a keener," said that gossip. "Think of that little
divil Cully jammed behind the door with her bid in his hand,
a-waitin' for the clock to get round to two minutes o' nine, an'
that big stuff Dan McGaw sittin' inside wid two bids up his
sleeve! Oh, but she's cunnin', she is! Dan's clean beat. He'll
niver haul a shovel o' that stone."
"How'll she be a-doin' a job like that?" came from a woman
listening over the banisters.
"Be doin'?" rejoined a red-headed virago. "Wouldn't ye be doin'
it yerself if ye had that big coal-dealer behind ye?"
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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 Dracula by Bram Stoker: was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula.
The house looked as though it had been long untenanted.
The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up.
All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint
had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately
there had been a large notice board in front of the balcony.
It had, however, been roughly torn away, the uprights which had
supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of the balcony I
saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked white.
I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the notice
board intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the ownership
Dracula |
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 Pupil by Henry James: was wrong, for she had fifty francs in her hand. She squeezed
forward in her dressing-gown, and he received her in his own,
between his bath-tub and his bed. He had been tolerably schooled
by this time to the "foreign ways" of his hosts. Mrs. Moreen was
ardent, and when she was ardent she didn't care what she did; so
she now sat down on his bed, his clothes being on the chairs, and,
in her preoccupation, forgot, as she glanced round, to be ashamed
of giving him such a horrid room. What Mrs. Moreen's ardour now
bore upon was the design of persuading him that in the first place
she was very good-natured to bring him fifty francs, and that in
the second, if he would only see it, he was really too absurd to
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