| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: his guileless vanity (first awakened by the offer of five hundred
pounds from a publisher) seemed something predestined and holy.
"It would be, of course, most desirable to be informed exactly,"
insisted the Assistant Commissioner uncandidly.
Chief Inspector Heat, conscious of renewed irritation at this
display of scrupulousness, said that the county police had been
notified from the first of Michaelis' arrival, and that a full
report could be obtained in a few hours. A wire to the
superintendent -
Thus he spoke, rather slowly, while his mind seemed already to be
weighing the consequences. A slight knitting of the brow was the
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: accommodated himself to Uri's taciturnity. Beyond the actions and
plans of his pursuers, the state of the trails, and the price of
dogs, they never talked; and these things were only discussed at
rare intervals and briefly. But Fortune fell to working out a
system, and hour after hour, and day after day, he shuffled and
dealt, shuffled and dealt, noted the combinations of the cards in
long columns, and shuffled and dealt again. Toward the end even
this absorption failed him, and, head bowed upon the table, he
visioned the lively all-night houses of Nome, where the
gamekeepers and lookouts worked in shifts and the clattering
roulette ball never slept. At such times his loneliness and
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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 Adventure by Jack London: just preparing a dynamite stick for fish, and he lighted it and
tossed it in amongst them. One can't get him to talk about it, but
the fuse was short, the survivors leaped overboard, while he
slipped his anchor and got away. They've got one hundred fathoms
of shell money on his head now, which is worth one hundred pounds
sterling. Yet he goes into Suu regularly. He was there a short
time ago, returning thirty boys from Cape Marsh--that's the Fulcrum
Brothers' plantation."
"At any rate, his news to-night has given me a better insight into
the life down here," Joan said. "And it is colourful life, to say
the least. The Solomons ought to be printed red on the charts--and
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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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: Madame de Merret seized a moment when he was unloading some bricks,
and when her husband was at the other end of the room to say to
Rosalie: 'My dear child, I will give you a thousand francs a year if
only you will tell Gorenflot to leave a crack at the bottom.' Then she
added aloud quite coolly: 'You had better help him.'
"Monsieur and Madame de Merret were silent all the time while
Gorenflot was walling up the door. This silence was intentional on the
husband's part; he did not wish to give his wife the opportunity of
saying anything with a double meaning. On Madame de Merret's side it
was pride or prudence. When the wall was half built up the cunning
mason took advantage of his master's back being turned to break one of
La Grande Breteche |
