| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: eyes. If she had played him a trick, Armand St. Just would suffer the
extreme penalty.
But no, no! of course she had not played him false!
Fortunately the supper-room was deserted: this would make
Chauvelin's task all the easier, when presently that unsuspecting
enigma would enter it alone. No one was here now save Chauvelin
himself.
Stay! as he surveyed with a satisfied smile the solitude of
the room, the cunning agent of the French Government became aware of
the peaceful, monotonous breathing of some one of my Lord Grenville's
guests, who, no doubt, had supped both wisely and well, and was
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: forbear pressing his two brave friends to his bosom; the Spaniards
and the Russian sailors crowded round for a farewell shake of the hand,
and little Nina, her great eyes flooded with tears, held up her face
for a parting kiss. The sad scene was not permitted to be long.
The sail was quickly hoisted, and the sledge, just as if it had expanded
a huge white wing, was in a little while carried far away beyond the horizon.
Light and unimpeded, the yawl scudded on with incredible speed.
Two sails, a brigantine and a jib, were arranged to catch the wind
to the greatest advantage, and the travelers estimated that their
progress would be little under the rate of twelve leagues an hour.
The motion of their novel vehicle was singularly gentle,
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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 The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: Flying Scud of Hull.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A HARD BARGAIN.
The ship which thus appeared before the castaways had long
"tramped" the ocean, wandering from one port to another as
freights offered. She was two years out from London, by the
Cape of Good Hope, India, and the Archipelago; and was now
bound for San Francisco in the hope of working homeward
round the Horn. Her captain was one Jacob Trent. He had
retired some five years before to a suburban cottage, a patch of
cabbages, a gig, and the conduct of what he called a Bank. The
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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 Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: peculiar fashion known as life. That the psychic or intellectual
life might be impaired by the slight deterioration of sensitive
brain-cells which even a short period of death would be apt to
cause, West fully realised. It had at first been his hope to find
a reagent which would restore vitality before the actual advent
of death, and only repeated failures on animals had shewn him
that the natural and artificial life-motions were incompatible.
He then sought extreme freshness in his specimens, injecting his
solutions into the blood immediately after the extinction of life.
It was this circumstance which made the professors so carelessly
sceptical, for they felt that true death had not occurred in any
Herbert West: Reanimator |
