| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: my Biology at University College,--getting out the ovary of the earthworm
and the radula of the snail, and all that. Lord! It's ten years ago.
But go on! go on! tell me about the boat."
He was evidently satisfied with the frankness of my story,
which I told in concise sentences enough, for I felt horribly weak;
and when it was finished he reverted at once to the topic
of Natural History and his own biological studies. He began to
question me closely about Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street.
"Is Caplatzi still flourishing? What a shop that was!"
He had evidently been a very ordinary medical student, and drifted
incontinently to the topic of the music halls. He told me
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Gertrude's sworn statement that you left before Arnold Armstrong
came would clear you at once."
Halsey got up and began to pace the room, and the air of
cheerfulness dropped like a mask.
"She can't swear it," he said finally. "Gertrude's story was
true as far as it went, but she didn't tell everything. Arnold
Armstrong came here at two-thirty--came into the billiard-room
and left in five minutes. He came to bring--something."
"Halsey," I cried, "you MUST tell me the whole truth. Every
time I see a way for you to escape you block it yourself with
this wall of mystery. What did he bring?"
The Circular Staircase |
