| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: I remember meeting a distinguished man in India, who had the
reputation of being a great shikaree, who told me that the greatest
temptation he had ever had in his life was to shoot a giant snake
which he had come across in the Terai of Upper India. He was on a
tiger-shooting expedition, and as his elephant was crossing a
nullah, it squealed. He looked down from his howdah and saw that
the elephant had stepped across the body of a snake which was
dragging itself through the jungle. 'So far as I could see,' he
said, 'it must have been eighty or one hundred feet in length.
Fully forty or fifty feet was on each side of the track, and though
the weight which it dragged had thinned it, it was as thick round as
Lair of the White Worm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: was none of that in your time--rather, I should say, is none of
that now. Of course. Now!--yes.
"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so
that one could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a
thousand feet high perhaps--coldly gray except for one bright edge
of gold, and beyond it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast
that faded and passed into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to
the west, distinct and near was a little bay, a little beach still
in shadow. And out of that shadow rose Solaro straight and tall,
flushed and golden crested, like a beauty throned, and the white
moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from east
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