| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: "You're bigger, Poll; more grown up like."
"Oh, Jim!" She glanced admiringly at the new brown suit, the
rather startling tie, and the neat little posy in Jim's
buttonhole.
"The fellows said I'd have to slick up a bit if I was a-comin' to
see you, so as not to make you ashamed of me. Do you like 'em?"
he asked, looking down approvingly at his new brown clothes.
"Very much." For the first time Jim noticed the unfamiliar
manner of her speech. He began to feel self-conscious. A year
ago she would have said, "You bet!" He looked at her awkwardly.
She hurried on: "Hasty told me you were showing in Wakefield. I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: tribes included under the general denomination of the Tar-
tar army.
Nothing could be more romantic than this picture, in
delineating which the most skillful artist would have ex-
hausted all the colors of his palette.
Feofar's tent overlooked the others. Draped in large
folds of a brilliant silk looped with golden cords and tas-
sels, surmounted by tall plumes which waved in the wind
like fans, it occupied the center of a wide clearing, sheltered
by a grove of magnificent birch and pine trees. Before
this tent, on a japanned table inlaid with precious stones,
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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 Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: their stomachs, and determined to die decently, like Julius Caesar.
"I suppose," said Tom, "she cuts up a great whale like you into a
whole shoal of porpoises?"
At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all
the creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped
out of that terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no
traveller returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering.
And, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest old
lady he had ever seen - a white marble lady, sitting on a white
marble throne. And from the foot of the throne there swum away,
out and out into the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more
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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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: "Well, I let the reit bok go, and it went like the wind, and kept my
eyes fixed upon the reeds. The fire was burning like a furnace now; the
flames crackling and roaring as they bit into the reeds, sending spouts
of fire twenty feet and more into the air, and making the hot air dance
above in a way that was perfectly dazzling. But the reeds were still
half green, and created an enormous quantity of smoke, which came
rolling towards me like a curtain, lying very low on account of the
wind. Presently, above the crackling of the fire, I heard a startled
roar, then another and another. So the lions were at home.
"I was beginning to get excited now, for, as you fellows know, there is
nothing in experience to warm up your nerves like a lion at close
Long Odds |
