| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: unused to weighing life in its subtler quantities, read Amos
Pentley like a book. She warned Bonner, openly and bluntly, in few
words; but the complexities of higher existence confused the
situation to him, and he laughed at her evident anxiety. To him,
Amos was a poor, miserable devil, tottering desperately into the
grave. And Bonner, who had suffered much, found it easy to forgive
greatly.
But one morning, during a bitter snap, he got up from the
breakfast-table and went into the store. Jees Uck was already
there, rosy from the trail, to buy a sack of flour. A few minutes
later, he was out in the snow lashing the flour on her sled. As he
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: She had a strongly marked face, her eyes looked straight at you,
and though naturally she was imperious in her manner she was nervous
at the same time. Mrs. Thornbury acted as interpreter, making things
smooth all round by a series of charming commonplace remarks.
"I've taken it upon myself, Mr. Ambrose," she said, "to promise
that you will be so kind as to give Mrs. Flushing the benefit
of your experience. I'm sure no one here knows the country as
well as you do. No one takes such wonderful long walks. No one,
I'm sure, has your encyclopaedic knowledge upon every subject.
Mr. Wilfrid Flushing is a collector. He has discovered really beautiful
things already. I had no notion that the peasants were so artistic--
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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 Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: steadily more and more daring, more and more determined, the jumps
went from a dollar up to five, then to ten, then to twenty, then
fifty, then to a hundred, then -
At the beginning of the auction Richards whispered in distress to
his wife: "Oh, Mary, can we allow it? It--it --you see, it is an
honour--reward, a testimonial to purity of character, and--and--can
we allow it? Hadn't I better get up and--Oh, Mary, what ought we to
do?--what do you think we--" [Halliday's voice. "Fifteen I'm bid!--
fifteen for the sack!--twenty!--ah, thanks!--thirty--thanks again!
Thirty, thirty, thirty!--do I hear forty?--forty it is! Keep the
ball rolling, gentlemen, keep it rolling!--fifty! --thanks, noble
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
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 Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and hospitable, forgathered within. No growling dogs,
no bulking bulls contested the short stretch of weed
grown ground between the road and the disintegrat-
ing structure; and presently two wide, brown eyes were
peering through a crack in the wall of the abandoned
building. What they saw was a small fire built upon
the earth floor in the center of the building and around
the warming blaze the figures of six men. Some reclined
at length upon old straw; others squatted, Turk fash-
ion. All were smoking either disreputable pipes or rolled
cigarets. Blear-eyed and foxy-eyed, bearded and stub-
The Oakdale Affair |
