| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: Green Island, or up there on Burnt Island where the signal is. He
had it all over to me one day, an' I tried hard to appear
interested. His life's all in it, but he will have those poor
gloomy spells come over him now an' then, an' then he has to
drink."
Mrs. Caplin gave a heavy sigh.
"There's a great many such strayaway folks, just as there is
plants," continued Mrs. Todd, who was nothing if not botanical. "I
know of just one sprig of laurel that grows over back here in a
wild spot, an' I never could hear of no other on this coast. I had
a large bunch brought me once from Massachusetts way, so I know it.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: hunger. Besides, the winter was rapidly advancing, and they had a
long journey to make through an unknown country, where all kinds
of perils might await them. They were yet, in fact, a thousand
miles from Astoria, but the distance was unknown to them at the
time: everything before and around them was vague and
conjectural, and wore an aspect calculated to inspire
despondency.
In abandoning the river, they would have to launch forth upon
vast trackless plains destitute of all means of subsistence,
where they might perish of hunger and thirst. A dreary desert of
sand and gravel extends from Snake River almost to the Columbia.
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: that my day has past its noon; and none more cogent than this:
that daily of bad wine I grow more intolerant, and of good wine
have a keener and more fastidious relish. There is no surer
symptom of receding years. The ferryman is my faithful varlet.
I send him on some pious errand, that I may meditate in ghostly
privacy, when my presence in the forest can best be spared:
and when can it be better spared than now, seeing that the
neighbourhood of Prince John, and his incessant perquisitions
for Marian, have made the forest too hot to hold more of us
than are needful to keep up a quorum, and preserve unbroken
the continuity of our forest-dominion? For, in truth, without your
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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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: of every doubt, after all. We may, for instance, come back to
the figure on the porch: if it was a woman you saw that night
through the window, we might start with other premises. Or Mr.
Innes' explanation may turn us in a new direction. It is
possible that he shot Arnold Armstrong as a burglar and then
fled, frightened at what he had done. In any case, however, I
feel confident that the body was here when he left. Mr.
Armstrong left the club ostensibly for a moonlight saunter, about
half after eleven o'clock. It was three when the shot was
fired."
I leaned back bewildered. It seemed to me that the evening had
The Circular Staircase |
