| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: like it."
"I am sorry," said Ann Veronica. "What else was I to do?"
For some seconds she stood watching him. and both were thinking
very quickly. Her state of mind would have seemed altogether
discreditable to her grandmother. She ought to have been disposed
to faint and scream at all these happenings; she ought to have
maintained a front of outraged dignity to veil the sinking of her
heart. I would like to have to tell it so. But indeed that is
not at all a good description of her attitude. She was an
indignant queen, no doubt she was alarmed and disgusted within
limits; but she was highly excited, and there was something, some
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: enough to let you see the flabby devil was running that show.
White men with long staves in their hands appeared languidly
from amongst the buildings, strolling up to take a look at me,
and then retired out of sight somewhere. One of them,
a stout, excitable chap with black moustaches, informed me
with great volubility and many digressions, as soon as I told
him who I was, that my steamer was at the bottom of the river.
I was thunderstruck. What, how, why? Oh, it was `all right.'
The `manager himself' was there. All quite correct.
`Everybody had behaved splendidly! splendidly!'--'you must,'
he said in agitation, `go and see the general manager at once.
Heart of Darkness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: those things, for when the girls' crying put Rudolph to his wits' end, he
realized that there was just one thing left to try, and that was to jump
overboard and try and pull Barney to land, since Barney would not pull him. So
into the water he jumped, keeping the reins in his hand, and then, getting a
little ahead of Barney, he began to walk and pull. Now fortunately, there is
nothing like the force of example, which simply means that when Barney saw
Rudolph walking and pulling he began to walk and pull too.
Meantime, while Patrick and his wife were thinking that the children had had
plenty of time to reach home before the storm, there was great anxiety in the
two homes where those three dear children lived. Patrick the coachman and
Philip the groom had been sent with the wagonette by the main road to Patrick
|
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 Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: Millery, about ten miles from Lyons, a roadmender, attracted by a
peculiar smell, discovered the remains of what appeared to be a
human body. They were wrapped in a cloth, but so decomposed as
to make identification almost impossible. M. Goron, at that time
head of the Parisian detective police, believed them to be the
remains of Gouffe, but a relative of the missing man, whom he
sent to Lyons, failed to identify them. Two days after the
discovery of the corpse, there were found near Millery the broken
fragments of a trunk, the lock of which fitted a key that had
been picked up near the body. A label on the trunk showed that
it had been dispatched from Paris to Lyons on July 27, 188--, but
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
