| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: ago, Liddy and I had seen the strange woman. Not far from the
west wing lay the blackened ruins of the stables. I felt like a
ruin myself, as I paused on the broad veranda before I entered
the house.
Two private detectives had arrived in my absence, and it was a
relief to turn over to them the responsibility of the house and
grounds. Mr. Jamieson, they said, had arranged for more to
assist in the search for the missing man, and at that time the
country was being scoured in all directions.
The household staff was again depleted that afternoon. Liddy was
waiting to tell me that the new cook had gone, bag and baggage,
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: of fairy white and green. The blue banners of the fleur-de-lis
were planted beside the springs. In shady corners, deeper in the
wood, the fragrant pyrola lifted its scape of clustering bells,
like a lily of the valley wandered to the forest. When we came to
the end of the portage, a perfume like that of cyclamens in
Tyrolean meadows welcomed us, and searching among the loose grasses
by the water-side we found the exquisite purple spikes of the
lesser fringed orchis, loveliest and most ethereal of all the
woodland flowers save one. And what one is that? Ah, my friend,
it is your own particular favourite, the flower, by whatever name
you call it, that you plucked long ago when you were walking in the
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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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: in her arms, and seemed to belong to the working class in Ostend,
moved aside to make room for the stranger. There was neither servility
nor scorn in her manner of doing this; it was a simple sign of the
goodwill by which the poor, who know by long experience the value of a
service and the warmth that fellowship brings, give expression to the
open-heartedness and the natural impulses of their souls; so artlessly
do they reveal their good qualities and their defects. The stranger
thanked her by a gesture full of gracious dignity, and took his place
between the young mother and the old soldier. Immediately behind him
sat a peasant and his son, a boy ten years of age. A beggar woman,
old, wrinkled, and clad in rags, was crouching, with her almost empty
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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 A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: have reproached them with the ill-treatment we had met with from
them. This was the reason of my advising to make the first attack
upon Mazna, to drive the Turks from thence, to build a citadel, and
garrison it with Portuguese.
The viceroy listened with great attention to all I had to say, gave
me a long audience, and asked me many questions. He was well
pleased with the design of sending a fleet into that sea, and, to
give a greater reputation to the enterprise, proposed making his son
commander-in-chief, but could by no means be brought to think of
fixing garrisons and building fortresses there; all he intended was
to plunder all they could, and lay the towns in ashes.
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