| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: the more distant (and equally unprepared) young man, catch their
breath: "But I don't want to be let off," she cried.
She was so still that one asked oneself whether the cry had come
from her. The restless shuffle behind Powell's back stopped short,
the intermittent shadowy chuckling ceased too. Young Powell,
glancing round, saw Mr. Smith raise his head with his faded eyes
very still, puckered at the corners, like a man perceiving something
coming at him from a great distance. And Mrs. Anthony's voice
reached Powell's ears, entreating and indignant.
"You can't cast me off like this, Roderick. I won't go away from
you. I won't--"
Chance |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: might trade."
Half an hour later Mr. Denman arrived himself with a most
unconscionable volume under his arm. "Ah, sir," he cried,
"when I 'eard you was a collector, I dropped all. It's a saying of
mine, Mr. Dodsley, that collecting stamps makes all collectors
kin. It's a bond, sir; it creates a bond."
Upon the truth of this, I cannot say; but there is no doubt that
the attempt to pass yourself off for a collector falsely creates a
precarious situation.
"Ah, here's the second issue!" I would say, after consulting the
legend at the side. "The pink--no, I mean the mauve--yes,
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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 The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: from his companion in glory. That worthy citizen pocketed his five
rupees and was never heard from again; I do not even remember his
name nor how he looked.
I killed a buck of some sort, and Memba Sasa, as usual, stepped
forward to attend to the trophy. But I stopped him.
"Fundi," said I, "if you are a gunbearer, prepare this beast."
He stepped up confidently and set to work. I watched him closely.
He did it very well, without awkwardness, though he made one or
two minor mistakes in method.
"Have you done this before?" I inquired.
"No, bwana."
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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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: the two or three relatives attracted doubtless by the presumption
of what she had to "leave," how few were the rights, as they were
called in such cases, that he had to put forward, and how odd it
might even seem that their intimacy shouldn't have given him more
of them. The stupidest fourth cousin had more, even though she had
been nothing in such a person's life. She had been a feature of
features in HIS, for what else was it to have been so
indispensable? Strange beyond saying were the ways of existence,
baffling for him the anomaly of his lack, as he felt it to be, of
producible claim. A woman might have been, as it were, everything
to him, and it might yet present him, in no connexion that any one
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