| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: remained five minutes, while my companions talked of the new book,
and when Drayton Deane appealed to me for my opinion of it I made
answer, getting up, that I detested Hugh Vereker and simply
couldn't read him. I departed with the moral certainty that as the
door closed behind me Deane would brand me for awfully superficial.
His hostess wouldn't contradict THAT at least.
I continue to trace with a briefer touch our intensely odd
successions. Three weeks after this came Vereker's death, and
before the year was out the death of his wife. That poor lady I
had never seen, but I had had a futile theory that, should she
survive him long enough to be decorously accessible, I might
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: reasonable-like after livin' in the Weald awhile, but our
first twenty year or two she was odd-fashioned, no
bounds. And she was a won'erful hand with bees.' He
cut away a little piece of potato and threw it out to the door.
'Ah! I've heard say the Whitgifts could see further
through a millstone than most,' said Shoesmith. 'Did
she, now?'
'She was honest-innocent of any nigromancin',' said
Hobden. 'Only she'd read signs and sinnifications out o'
birds flyin', stars fallin', bees hivin', and such. An, she'd
lie awake - listenin' for calls, she said.'
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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 This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: were presumably asleep inside.
"Good-by," said Olson. He reached in his pocket suggestively, but
Amory snorted, and, taking the girl's arm, turned away.
"Where did you tell the driver to go?" she asked as they whirled
along the dim street.
"The station."
"If that guy writes my mother"
"He won't. Nobody'll ever know about thisexcept our friends and
enemies."
Dawn was breaking over the sea.
"It's getting blue," she said.
This Side of Paradise |
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 Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: derment.
"What do you mean?" asked the young Englishman. "Who
is Sheeta?" but for answer the ape-man suddenly hurled
the carcass of Bara, the deer, to the ground and leaped quickly
toward them, his eyes upon something in their rear; and then
it was that the two turned and learned the identity of Sheeta,
for behind them was a devil-faced cat charging rapidly toward
them.
Sheeta with rising anger and suspicion had seen the ape-man
leap from the tree and approach the quarry. His life's expe-
riences backed by instinct told him that the Tarmangani was
Tarzan the Untamed |
