| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: Very fine, very roomy for her size, and very inviting.
I descended the poop and paced the waist, my mind picturing
to myself the coming passage through the Malay Archipelago,
down the Indian Ocean, and up the Atlantic. All its phases
were familiar enough to me, every characteristic, all the
alternatives which were likely to face me on the high seas--
everything! . . . except the novel responsibility of command.
But I took heart from the reasonable thought that the ship
was like other ships, the men like other men, and that the sea
was not likely to keep any special surprises expressly
for my discomfiture.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: and this was the idea with which my editorial heart used to thrill.
It literally beat faster often, of an evening, when I had been out,
as I stopped with my candle in the re-echoing hall on my way up to bed.
It was as if at such a moment as that, in the stillness, after the long
contradiction of the day, Miss Bordereau's secrets were in the air,
the wonder of her survival more palpable. These were the acute impressions.
I had them in another form, with more of a certain sort of reciprocity,
during the hours that I sat in the garden looking up over the top
of my book at the closed windows of my hostess. In these windows
no sign of life ever appeared; it was as if, for fear of my catching
a glimpse of them, the two ladies passed their days in the dark.
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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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: might have smiled over his orthography, or his green tail-coat.
But it was not my turn for the moment.
I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had learned the art to
perfection. And certainly Modestine did wonders for the rest of
the fore-noon, and I had a breathing space to look about me. It
was Sabbath; the mountain-fields were all vacant in the sunshine;
and as we came down through St. Martin de Frugeres, the church was
crowded to the door, there were people kneeling without upon the
steps, and the sound of the priest's chanting came forth out of the
dim interior. It gave me a home feeling on the spot; for I am a
countryman of the Sabbath, so to speak, and all Sabbath
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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 The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: "The devil they have!" said I.
Here, as certain of our own writers say and have said, a gurgle
of delight escaped her. I leaned forward and grabbed at
something, caught and handed it to her. She stared at my empty
palm.
"Your gurgle, I think."
"Oh," she said, laughing, "you are mad. But I like you. Now,
why is that?"
"Personal charm," said I. "The palmist who sits where the
draughts are in the Brown Park Hotel, West Central, said I had a
magnetism of my own."
The Brother of Daphne |
