| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: silver coins on the edge of the table before him. The waiter kept
one eye on it, while his other eye followed the long back of a
tall, not very young girl, who passed up to a distant table looking
perfectly sightless and altogether unapproachable. She seemed to
be a habitual customer.
On going out the Assistant Commissioner made to himself the
observation that the patrons of the place had lost in the
frequentation of fraudulent cookery all their national and private
characteristics. And this was strange, since the Italian
restaurant is such a peculiarly British institution. But these
people were as denationalised as the dishes set before them with
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: shaken. For it chanced that I had come to dwell in Silverado
at a critical hour; great events in its history were about to
happen - did happen, as I am led to believe; nay, and it will
be seen that I played a part in that revolution myself. And
yet from first to last I never had a glimmer of an idea what
was going on; and even now, after full reflection, profess
myself at sea. That there was some obscure intrigue of the
cigar-box order, and that I, in the character of a wooden
puppet, set pen to paper in the interest of somebody, so
much, and no more, is certain.
Silverado, then under my immediate sway, belonged to one whom
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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 When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: gripped the parapet and listened, while my heart pounded, and in
a minute it came again.
I was terribly frightened. Then--I don't know how I did it, but I
was across the roof, kneeling beside the tent, where it stood
against the chimney. And there, lying prone among the flower
pots, and almost entirely hidden, lay the man we had been looking
for.
His head was toward me, and I reached out shakingly and touched
his face. It was cold, and my hand, when I drew it back, was
covered with blood.
Chapter XXII. IT WAS DELIRIUM
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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 A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: " 'That is true,' returned La Palferine, 'but I do not choose that
anything shall slip into my life without my consent.'
"From that day he set himself to torment Claudine. It seemed that he
held the bourgeoise, the nobody, in utter horror; nothing would
satisfy him but a woman with a title. Claudine, it was true, had made
progress; she had learned to dress as well as the best-dressed woman
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; she had freed her bearing of the
unhallowed traces; she walked with a chastened, inimitable grace; but
this was not enough. This praise of her enabled Claudine to swallow
down the rest.
"But one day La Palferine said, 'If you wish to be the mistress of one
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