| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: light hand with which Corvick had gilded the gingerbread - he laid
on the tinsel in splotches.
CHAPTER X.
SIX months later appeared "The Right of Way," the last chance,
though we didn't know it, that we were to have to redeem ourselves.
Written wholly during Vereker's sojourn abroad, the book had been
heralded, in a hundred paragraphs, by the usual ineptitudes. I
carried it, as early a copy as any, I this time flattered myself,
straightway to Mrs. Corvick. This was the only use I had for it; I
left the inevitable tribute of THE MIDDLE to some more ingenious
mind and some less irritated temper. "But I already have it,"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: present state is my proper work; I therefore return to my voyage up
the river.
The sight of these ships thus laid up in the river, as I have said,
was very agreeable to me in my passage from Harwich, about five and
thirty years before the present journey; and it was in its
proportion equally melancholy to hear that there were now scarce
forty sail of good colliers that belonged to the whole town.
In a creek in this river, called Lavington Creek, we saw at low
water such shoals, or hills rather, of mussels, that great boats
might have loaded with them, and no miss have been made of them.
Near this creek, Sir Samuel Barnadiston had a very fine seat, as,
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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 Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: firing hysterically at the boy.
Jack leaped behind a tree, unhit. Days of panic ridden flight
through the jungle had filled Carl Jenssen and Sven Malbihn with
jangling nerves and their native boys with unreasoning terror.
Every new note from behind sounded to their frightened ears the
coming of The Sheik and his bloodthirsty entourage. They were
in a blue funk, and the sight of the naked white warrior stepping
silently out of the jungle through which they had just passed had
been sufficient shock to let loose in action all the pent nerve energy
of Malbihn, who had been the first to see the strange apparition.
And Malbihn's shout and shot had set the others going.
The Son of Tarzan |
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 Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: The diminished list of competitors for silvan
fame still amounted to eight. Prince John stepped
from his royal seat to view more nearly the persons
of these chosen yeomen, several of whom wore the
royal livery. Having satisfied his curiosity by this
investigation, he looked for the object of his resentment,
whom he observed standing on the same
spot, and with the same composed countenance
which he had exhibited upon the preceding day.
``Fellow,'' said Prince John, ``I guessed by thy
insolent babble that thou wert no true lover of the longbow,
Ivanhoe |
