| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: attack of imagination, complicated by clothes-instinct."
"That's all that ails Poiret," Buck would retort.
Early in the autumn, when women were still walking with an absurd
sidewise gait, like a duck, or a filly that is too tightly
hobbled, the junior partner of the firm began to show
unmistakable signs of business aberration. A blight seemed to
have fallen upon her bright little office, usually humming with
activity. The machinery of her day, ordinarily as noiseless and
well ordered as a thing on ball bearings, now rasped, creaked,
jerked, stood still, jolted on again. A bustling clerk or
stenographer, entering with paper or memorandum, would find her
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: at the green warrior. It flew true as an arrow and piercing
the poor devil's heart laid him dead upon the arena.
Kantos Kan and I were now pitted against each other but
as we approached to the encounter I whispered to him to
prolong the battle until nearly dark in the hope that we
might find some means of escape. The horde evidently
guessed that we had no hearts to fight each other and so
they howled in rage as neither of us placed a fatal thrust.
Just as I saw the sudden coming of dark I whispered to
Kantos Kan to thrust his sword between my left arm and my
body. As he did so I staggered back clasping the sword
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: or he had escaped right away. It was very vexatious; but still three
lions were not a bad bag for one gun before dinner, and I was fain to be
content. Accordingly I departed back again, making my way round the
isolated pillar of boulders, beginning to feel, as I did so, that I was
pretty well done up with excitement and fatigue, and should be more so
before I had skinned those three lions. When I had got, as nearly as I
could judge, about eighteen yards past the pillar or mass of boulders, I
turned to have another look round. I have a pretty sharp eye, but I
could see nothing at all.
"Then, on a sudden, I saw something sufficiently alarming. On the top
of the mass of boulders, opposite to me, standing out clear against the
Long Odds |
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 Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: versation took place.
Prince Michael Ivanovich was a tall, handsome,
white-haired, fresh coloured man, proud and at-
tractive in appearance and bearing. His family
consisted of a vulgar, irritable wife, who wran-
gled with him continually over every petty detail,
a son, a ne'er-do-well, spendthrift and roue--
yet a "gentleman," according to his father's code,
two daughters, of whom the elder had married
well, and was living in St. Petersburg; and the
younger, Lisa--his favourite, who had disap-
The Forged Coupon |
