| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: illuminating talk in which the welcome was conveyed. Some voice of
the air had taught me the right moment, the moment of his life at
which an act of unexpected young allegiance might most come home to
him. He had recently recovered from a long, grave illness. I had
gone to the neighbouring inn for the night, but I spent the evening
in his company, and he insisted the next day on my sleeping under
his roof. I hadn't an indefinite leave: Mr. Pinhorn supposed us
to put our victims through on the gallop. It was later, in the
office, that the rude motions of the jig were set to music. I
fortified myself, however, as my training had taught me to do, by
the conviction that nothing could be more advantageous for my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: And the new age forgets us and goes on.
XLII
SING me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul:
Where is that glory now?
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
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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 Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: presently die. Now, if these be Rokuro-Kubi, they mean me no good;-- so I
shall be justified in following the instructions of the book."...
He seized the body of the aruji by the feet, pulled it to the window, and
pushed it out. Then he went to the back-door, which he found barred; and he
surmised that the heads had made their exit through the smoke-hole in the
roof, which had been left open. Gently unbarring the door, he made his way
to the garden, and proceeded with all possible caution to the grove beyond
it. He heard voices talking in the grove; and he went in the direction of
the voices,-- stealing from shadow to shadow, until he reached a good
hiding-place. Then, from behind a trunk, he caught sight of the heads,--
all five of them,-- flitting about, and chatting as they flitted. They were
Kwaidan |
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 Under the Andes by Rex Stout: I was frankly puzzled by her words and conduct of an hour before;
was it merely one of the trickeries of Le Mire or--
I was interested in the question as one is always interested
in a riddle; but I tossed it from my mind, promising myself a
solution on the morrow, and gave my attention to the vagaries of
nature about me.
We were passing through a cleft between two massive rocks,
some three or four hundred yards in length. Ahead of us, at the
end of the passage, a like boulder fronted us.
Our footfalls echoed and reechoed from wall to wall; the only
other sound was the eery moaning of the wind that reached our ears
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