| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis: succeeded in purloining the box. He was alone, but he attempted
to come to the assistance of his two followers even as we made
them prisoners. In fact, we exchanged shots."
The great detective made little of the danger he had encountered.
Indeed, his smile became one of amusement as he removed his coat,
rolled up his shirt sleeves, and exhibited a bandaged wound in
the fleshy part of his arm.
"It is only a slight wound," he said, beaming on it as if wounds
were quite delightful affairs, "and scarcely inconveniences me."
Barton Ward and Watson Bard, with their sleeves rolled up, were
also smiling placidly and indulgently at bandages about their
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: the serious plays which did not contain parts big enough to hold the
overcharge were left on the shelf, amply accounts for the evident fact
that Shakespear did not end his life in a glow of enthusiastic
satisfaction with mankind and with the theatre, which is all that Mr
Harris can allege in support of his broken-heart theory. But even if
Shakespear had had no failures, it was not possible for a man of his
powers to observe the political and moral conduct of his
contemporaries without perceiving that they were incapable of dealing
with the problems raised by their own civilization, and that their
attempts to carry out the codes of law and to practise the religions
offered to them by great prophets and law-givers were and still are so
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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 Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: upon Tower-hill! for since that Florida plot, and after that his
hopes of Irish preferment came to naught, he who could not help
himself by fair means has taken to foul ones, and gone over to
Italy to the Pope, whose infallibility has not been proof against
Stukely's wit; for he was soon his Holiness's closet counsellor,
and, they say, his bosom friend; and made him give credit to his
boasts that, with three thousand soldiers he would beat the English
out of Ireland, and make the Pope's son king of it."
"Ay, but," said Mr. Leigh, "I suppose the Italians have the same
fetch now as they had when I was there, to explain such ugly cases;
namely, that the Pope is infallible only in doctrine, and quoad
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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 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: widow, and still something of a grande DAME. She belonged to one of the
best families, and had the character to carry it off. Connie liked her,
she was so perfectly simple and frank, as far as she intended to be
frank, and superficially kind. Inside herself she was a past-mistress
in holding her own, and holding other people a little lower. She was
not at all a snob: far too sure of herself. She was perfect at the
social sport of coolly holding her own, and making other people defer
to her.
She was kind to Connie, and tried to worm into her woman's soul with
the sharp gimlet of her well-born observations.
'You're quite wonderful, in my opinion,' she said to Connie. 'You've
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
