| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: that it found was an amazement to Andre-Louis.
"Leandre, you're an imbecile! Too much phlegm, too much phlegm!
Your words wouldn't convince a ploughboy! Have you considered what
they mean at all? Thus," he cried, and casting his round hat from
him in a broad gesture, he took his stand at M. Leandre's side, and
repeated the very words that Leandre had lately uttered, what time
the three observed him coolly and attentively.
"Oh, say what you will, my friend, this is ruin - the end of all
our hopes. Your wits will never extricate us from this. Never!"
A frenzy of despair vibrated in his accents. He swung again to face
M. Leandre. "Thus," he bade him contemptuously. "Let the passion
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: all. I didn't want to arouse the household, so Denby gave me a
bed."
"How did you hear the news?" I asked.
"Wilkins knocked Denby up to tell him. My poor Emily! She was so
self-sacrificing--such a noble character. She over-taxed her
strength."
A wave of revulsion swept over me. What a consummate hypocrite
the man was!
"I must hurry on," I said, thankful that he did not ask me
whither I was bound.
In a few minutes I was knocking at the door of Leastways Cottage.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: Rigid and conscious, spectral yet human, a man of his own substance
and stature waited there to measure himself with his power to
dismay. This only could it be - this only till he recognised, with
his advance, that what made the face dim was the pair of raised
hands that covered it and in which, so far from being offered in
defiance, it was buried, as for dark deprecation. So Brydon,
before him, took him in; with every fact of him now, in the higher
light, hard and acute - his planted stillness, his vivid truth, his
grizzled bent head and white masking hands, his queer actuality of
evening-dress, of dangling double eye-glass, of gleaming silk
lappet and white linen, of pearl button and gold watch-guard and
|
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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: I have spoken--begone!"
But the heart of Zinita was hungry for vengeance, vengeance swift and
terrible, on the Lily, who lay in her place, and on her husband, who
had thrust her aside for the Lily's sake. She did not desire to wait--
no, not even for an hour.
"Hearken, O King!" she cried, "the tale is not yet all told. This man,
Bulalio, plots against thy throne with Mopo, son of Makedama, who was
thy councillor."
"He plots against my throne, woman? The lizard plots against the cliff
on which it suns itself? Then let him plot; and as for Mopo, I will
catch him yet!"
Nada the Lily |
