| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: House have always done. White lord, we thank you for your good words.
May you live long, and may good fortune sleep in your hut to the end.
May you shoot straight, also, with your magic tool, and thereby win the
lives of your company out of the hand of the king. Farewell, Inkoos,"
and since he could not lift his bound hands in salutation, he bowed to
me, as did the others.
Then they walked to a little distance, and, seating themselves on the
ground, began to talk together, and after a while to drone some strange
chant in unison. The executioners and the guards also sat down not far
away, laughing, chatting, and passing a horn of snuff from hand to hand.
Indeed, I observed that the captain of them even took some snuff to the
Marie |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: stay at Santa Ysabel del Mar. Yet it was perhaps a week before the priest
knew this guest was come to abide with him. The guest could be discreet,
could withdraw, was not at first importunate.
Sail away on the barkentine? A wild notion, to be sure! although fit
enough to enter the brain of such a young scape-grace. The Padre shook
his head and smiled affectionately when he thought of Gaston Villere. The
youth's handsome, reckless countenance would shine out, smiling, in his
memory, and he repeated Auber's old remark, "Is it the good Lord, or is
it merely the devil, that always makes me have a weakness for rascals?"
Sail away on the barkentine! Imagine taking leave of the people here--of
Felipe! In what words should he tell the boy to go on industriously with
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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 War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: darkness, I stood my trial, my only trial, for that moment of
wrath and fear. I retraced every step of our conversation from
the moment when I had found him crouching beside me,
heedless of my thirst, and pointing to the fire and smoke
that streamed up from the ruins of Weybridge. We had been
incapable of co-operation--grim chance had taken no heed
of that. Had I foreseen, I should have left him at Halliford.
But I did not foresee; and crime is to foresee and do. And
I set this down as I have set all this story down, as it was.
There were no witnesses--all these things I might have con-
cealed. But I set it down, and the reader must form his
War of the Worlds |
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 Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: smart yachting suits. "Can we come aboard?" she repeated.
Wilbur gasped and stared. "Good Lord!" he muttered. "Oh, come
along," he added, desperately.
The party came over the side.
"Oh, my!" said Miss Herrick blankly, stopping short.
The decks, masts, and rails of the schooner were shiny with a
black coating of dirt and grease; the sails were gray with grime;
a strangling odor of oil and tar, of cooking and of opium, of
Chinese punk and drying fish, pervaded all the air. In the waist,
Hoang and Jim, bare to the belt, their queues looped around their
necks to be out of the way, were stowing the dory and exchanging
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