| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: lamp; and Archer, having meanwhile put together a
phrase out of Dante and Petrarch, evoked the answer:
"La signora e fuori; ma verra subito"; which he took
to mean: "She's out--but you'll soon see."
What he saw, meanwhile, with the help of the lamp,
was the faded shadowy charm of a room unlike any
room he had known. He knew that the Countess Olenska
had brought some of her possessions with her--bits of
wreckage, she called them--and these, he supposed,
were represented by some small slender tables of dark
wood, a delicate little Greek bronze on the chimney-
|
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 Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: at them," said the mate.
After waiting a moment, Mr. Burns motioned
the crew to leave the cabin, but he detained the two
eldest men to stay with the captain while he went
on deck with his sextant to "take the sun." It
was getting toward noon and he was anxious to
obtain a good observation for latitude. When he
returned below to put his sextant away he found
that the two men had retreated out into the lobby.
Through the open door he had a view of the captain
lying easy against the pillows. He had "passed
 The Shadow Line |