| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: Good Hope. Which is to say, King John has Good Hope of
seeing Portugal swell. Portugal! Well, I say, `Why not
Spain'?''
The student looked up from his book. ``It is a great
Age!'' he said and returned to his reading.
When we had finished dinner, we paid the tall, gaunt
woman and leaving the robbers, if robbers they were, still
at table, went out into the street. Here the friars, the alcalde
and the lawyer moved in the direction of the small, staring
white and ruined mosque that was to be transformed into
the church of San Jago the Deliverer. That was the one
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: man - "
"Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently.
The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly
above the ghostly grey of my sleeping-suit. It was, in the night,
as though I had been faced by my own reflection in the depths of a
sombre and immense mirror.
"A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway boy," murmured my
double, distinctly.
"You're a Conway boy?"
"I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly . . . "Perhaps you
too - "
'Twixt Land & Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: really meant to make a pile, people should not know it was an
artificial process and capable of turning out diamonds by the ton.
So I had to work all alone. At first I had a little laboratory,
but as my resources began to run out I had to conduct my
experiments in a wretched unfurnished room in Kentish Town, where
I slept at last on a straw mattress on the floor among all my
apparatus. The money simply flowed away. I grudged myself
everything except scientific appliances. I tried to keep things
going by a little teaching, but I am not a very good teacher, and
I have no university degree, nor very much education except in
chemistry, and I found I had to give a lot of time and labour for
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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 Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: cross, made on this pattern, red-hot. We are going to stamp it
upon your forehead, here between the eyes, so that there will be
no possibility of hiding the mark with diamonds, and so avoiding
people's questions. In short, you shall bear on your forehead
the brand of infamy which your brothers the convicts wear on
their shoulders. The pain is a mere trifle, but I feared a
nervous crisis of some kind, of resistance----"
"Resistance?" she cried, clapping her hands for joy. "Oh no,
no! I would have the whole world here to see. Ah, my Armand,
brand her quickly, this creature of yours; brand her with your
mark as a poor little trifle belonging to you. You asked for
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