| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: can't. It's because Masterman's dead, and he's keeping it dark.'
'Golly!' cried the impressionable John. 'But what's the use? Why
does he do it, anyway?'
'To defraud us of the tontine,' said his brother.
'He couldn't; you have to have a doctor's certificate,' objected
John.
'Did you never hear of venal doctors?' enquired Morris. 'They're
as common as blackberries: you can pick 'em up for
three-pound-ten a head.'
'I wouldn't do it under fifty if I were a sawbones,' ejaculated
John.
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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 Human Drift by Jack London: the ends of your fingers. But you hold, and your partner gets the
longer rope and makes it fast. You straighten up and look at your
hands. They are ruined. You can scarcely relax the crooks of the
fingers. The pain is sickening. But there is no time. The
skiff, which is always perverse, is pounding against the barnacles
on the piles which threaten to scrape its gunwale off. It's drop
the peak! Down jib! Then you run lines, and pull and haul and
heave, and exchange unpleasant remarks with the bridge-tender who
is always willing to meet you more than half way in such repartee.
And finally, at the end of an hour, with aching back, sweat-soaked
shirt, and slaughtered hands, you are through and swinging along
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