| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: ham sandwiches caught her eye. She went up to them and touched the top one
delicately with her finger.
"How much are the sandwiches?" she asked.
"Tuppence!" bawled a rude steward, slamming down a knife and fork.
Grandma could hardly believe it.
"Twopence each?" she asked.
"That's right," said the steward, and he winked at his companion.
Grandma made a small, astonished face. Then she whispered primly to
Fenella. "What wickedness!" And they sailed out at the further door and
along a passage that had cabins on either side. Such a very nice
stewardess came to meet them. She was dressed all in blue, and her collar
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: helping the weak throughout the length and breadth of the empire,
the system might be at least tolerable. But what if the Government
were not a Briareus with a hundred hands, but a Hydra with a hundred
heads and mouths, each far more intent on helping itself than on
helping the people? What if sub-delegates and other officials,
holding office at the will of the intendant, had to live, and even
provide against a rainy day? What if intendants, holding office at
the will of the Comptroller-General, had to do more than live, and
found it prudent to realise as large a fortune as possible, not only
against disgrace, but against success, and the dignity fit for a new
member of the Noblesse de la Robe? Would not the system, then, soon
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: majority. The pool rooms offered five to four that it would carry
in the senate.
It was on the night of the twenty-first of December that the
amendment passed the House. On the morning of the twenty-third the
_Herald_ sprang a front page sensation. It charged that the editor
of the _World_ had ruined a girl named Nellie Anderson at a house
where he had boarded and that she had subsequently disappeared. It
featured also a story of how he had been seen to enter his rooms
at midnight with a woman of the street, who remained there until
morning reveling with him. Attached to this were the affidavits of
two detectives, a police officer, and the druggist who had
|
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 Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: girl slipped now this way now that, riding so uncomfortably that the
priest pointed out to her, after leaving Ballan, that she had better
hold on to him; and immediately my lady put her plump arms around the
waist of her cavalier, in a modest and timorous manner.
"There, you don't slip about now. Are you comfortable?" said the
vicar.
"Yes, I am comfortable. Are you?"
"I?" said the priest, "I am better than that."
And, in fact, he was quite at his ease, and was soon gently warmed in
the back by two projections which rubbed against it, and at last
seemed as though they wished to imprint themselves between his
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
